


hair-pulling, name-calling, and all the things crushes are made of

by skittidyne



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Character Study, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Family Feels, Fluff, Gen, Insecurity, M/M, Seriously Futakuchi You Aren't In Grade School Anymore, Team Dynamics, Teasing As Means Of Affection, The Fake Relationship Isn't The Main Ship, yes you read that correctly
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-12-02
Updated: 2017-11-08
Packaged: 2018-09-03 18:22:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 34,810
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8725405
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skittidyne/pseuds/skittidyne
Summary: Due to a little girl's innocent misunderstanding, one Futakuchi Kenji ends up dating Aone Takanobu. Except, not really. Because being a new captain isn't difficult enough, right? (Neither he nor Aone want to discuss who they'd rather be really dating.)





	1. duty (bro code) before honor (when has kenji ever had honor anyway)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The one where Kenji started a Dateko fashion trend and a little girl had a bad misunderstanding.

Despite all of the shit he’d heard in reference to himself, Futakuchi Kenji was pretty comfortable with himself as a person. You had to have a certain amount of self-confidence in order to say half the stuff he did, he knew with no small amount of pride, and that wasn’t even taking into account things like his team or grades or his astonishing good looks.

Okay, the last thing he definitely repeated to himself through gritted teeth every morning in the mirror as he fought with his hair, but Kenji lived by the phrase “fake it ‘till you make it”.

And it wasn’t as if he’d heard many jabs at his looks, anyway. Insulting someone’s face was low-hanging fruit, and Kenji liked to think he brought out the best in people. He didn’t deign to start shit with just _anyone_. (Not that attacking his personality was any more clever or surprising.)

But there was a difference between insults and pointing out an actual flaw. In an insulting manner.

“I don’t have a _blind spot_ ,” Kenji hissed, indignant, face aflame even as he jerked his head to get his hair out of his eyes. Everyone’s hair was a mess at practice, anyway! Onagawa’s was a perpetual rat’s nest, and _no one_ should get him started on what Koganegawa’s hair did after he sweated out his cheap hair gel. He also had several stories about Moniwa’s hair, too, and for that matter— “Also, _senpai_ , you already left the fucking team, so step off and let the new captain work.”

“Maybe new captain needs to get a haircut because new captain is setting a pretty shitty example by misjudging his _third_ block from his right side in the past hour.”

Kamasaki may have been many things—strangely dependable (when it counted, and only if Kenji never vocalized it), and weirdly sharp (only about _some_ things, of course), and blunt nearly to the point of admirable (not that Kenji would _ever_ admire anything about that fucker)—but one thing he was _not_ was still on the Dateko Boys Volleyball Team.

As such, and as Kenji was about to tell him, he needed to kindly Fuck Off.

“Don’t you have better things to do—”

Kenji was horrifically and unfairly interrupted by Aone’s very solid _thump_ to his chest.

Kamasaki wasn’t even close enough yet for them to _need_ to be physically separated, and Kenji didn’t think it particularly kind to get winded like this when they still had forty-five minutes of practice left. He staggered, wheezing weakly, and fell against Aone’s shoulder in a bid to stay upright. Aone’s hand remained against his chest, and after a long, breathless moment, Kenji realized that he had something in it.

A barrette.

A cute, glittery, lavender barrette. For his hair.

In order, Kenji’s reaction went: he sort of wanted to put it up Aone’s nose in retaliation, then he realized he _definitely_ wanted to put it up Kamasaki’s nose just because, then he realized that it would look far better in Aone’s lighter hair than his own, and _then_ , at last, Kenji realized that the best way to solve this situation was to admit his fault.

“Ah, thank you, Aone-kun!” Kenji chirped, and it wasn’t even all that faked. “You’re right, I definitely should worry about keeping my field of vision open and pin back my hair. Thanks for being such a considerate friend and teammate.”

Kamasaki, predictably, came charging at him like a normal-school-uniform-wearing bull. Aone, just as predictably, threw out an arm and stopped him with another _whump_ of bodily contact. Aone hadn’t even moved from the impact.

“That looks good on you, senpai! It’s very cute!” Koganegawa exclaimed while Kamasaki wheezed on Aone’s other side. “Aone-senpai, is that your sister’s? She has very good taste!”

Aone nodded, and seemed pleased. How adorable. Kenji made a note to take a selfie with the barrette in his hair later. “Well, now that we’ve got that all settled, like the cohesive, trusting, and helpful team we are _minus certain parties_ , let’s get practice back underway!”

“Futakuchiiiii,” Kamasaki valiantly growled, despite the rasp to his voice. (One that made his spine itch, all the way up from his tailbone. He told himself it was just because he’d sounded like a horror game monster, and absolutely for no other reason.) “I was just trying to give you some advice, you bastard. You don’t always have to be such an ass about it.”

“I would always gratefully accept any advice from any of my senpai,” Kenji replied, carefully disinterested as he pretended to straighten his jersey, “but the fact of the matter is that I’m just _so_ positive that all of my senpai have far better things to be doing with their lives than trying to undermine _my_ captaincy by interrupting practice and critiquing my—”

“With less words, captain,” Obara called, and Kenji’s mouth twitched into a frown he immediately fought back.  

“Back to practice!” Kenji barked. He didn’t give Kamasaki another glance, because they _did_ have practice, and he _did_ have to set a good example.

And maybe he could see just a little better now. He’d kind of forgotten what peripherals were like. He usually didn’t go that long between haircuts, but he supposed it had been a few extra weeks. Whoops.

Kamasaki didn’t stay long after that. Kenji knew he had work that evening, and he probably shouldn’t have come at all. Kenji hadn’t _wanted_ him to come. The third years had retired, and while Kenji could at least appreciate Moniwa’s occasional appearance (read: appreciate another chance to beg for help with the unexpected, if deserved, stresses of the captaincy), and at least Sasaya was some kind of horrible middle ground of jeering and support, Kamasaki _didn’t_ need to stop by twice a week, and _absolutely not_ in order to critique Kenji’s hair.

Why did he even notice his hair?

Why couldn’t he have complimented him on some of the great blocks up until that point? Or how good his serve was shaping up to be?

After practice, just because he could, Kenji took a picture of himself with the clip still in and added it to his snapchat.

Thankfully, he had enough foresight to do this prior to stripping, because he was many things, but he was not actually so desperate as to upload shirtless pictures of himself onto any kind of media platform. Wrong kind of baiting.

He rinsed off in the showers, preferring to wash his hair at home, and only unclipped his hair afterward. He didn’t have time to cut his hair anytime soon, and he liked to think he wasn’t fragile enough to care about something like hair accessories. Maybe there was merit in this.

“Hey, Aone?”

Aone looked up at him, gruff and silent as usual, but nothing unkind in his expression if you bothered to look. (Kenji always bothered to look.)

“Do you think your sister would mind if I borrowed this?” He held up the barrette and gave him a pleading, puppy dog look.

“Dude, ask Mai-chan if you want hair accessories,” Obara said with a huffy laugh.

“First off, Nametsu would probably take scissors to my hair herself.”

“And second?”

Kenji tapped the screen on his phone to light it back up, then proudly showed them his snapchat notifications. Kamasaki had already replayed the picture twice _and_ made the mistake of screenshotting it.

His beloved team, in response to his utter victory, wore that God You’re Actually An Asshole Aren’t You expression. It was a collective expression they had perfected. Kenji knew it well.

“…She likes that one,” Aone murmured, and Kenji was too surprised by that to take much offense to the rest of the team. “Maybe another.”

“Right, fine! Let me come over and I’ll see if I can’t sweet talk Hitomi-chan into giving me some fashion advice.” And, as usual, he could sweet talk Aone-san into letting him stay for dinner. Kenji wasn’t new to this.

Aone nodded.

(That was their first mistake.)

 

—

 

“God, you’re getting sooo big!” Kenji hauled Hitomi up onto his hip, an arm wrapped around her waist for support, and she only indulged him because she could now reach his hair again. She clipped another bow onto his shaggy bangs and beamed. “You’re going to have to keep growing if you want to be able to continue making me pretty.”

“I don’t think I could do that,” Hitomi dubiously replied, and Kenji struggled to keep the grin on his face. How could a little girl deliver better insults than any grown volleyball player he’d ever encountered?

“C’mon, Hitomi-chan, be nice to Kenji-niichan!”

“I can’t work miracles!” she maintained with her nose in the air. “You don’t even like wearing pink.”

“There are other pretty colors,” Aone remarked. As Kenji had predicted, his hair _did_ look good with lavender clips. Hitomi probably wore it best, though.

Kenji set her down, hiding his _oof_ as she tried to hang onto his neck, and ended up plopping down next to Aone. Hitomi took it as an invitation to walk over both of them in order to retrieve another glittery box of hair accessories and jewelry. He would love to invite anyone who’d ever called _him_ cheeky to meet Aone Hitomi. “Maybe if you were both prettier, you wouldn’t get into fights at matches,” she mused, mostly to herself, staring daggers down at the box in her hands. (The stare, unfortunately, bore a strong resemblance to her brother’s.)

“We don’t get into _fights_ ,” Kenji lied, and blatantly at that, given the disappointed look both siblings sent him. “Fighting is wrong, Hitomi-chan. Don’t forget that.” Nevermind the fact that _he_ was usually stopping _Aone_ from picking fights, that traitor.

“Niisan tells me about the fights you pick with your own teammates,” Hitomi informed him.

Kenji glared at Aone, who looked to the far wall. Never let it be said that Kenji pitied those who wronged him. “Oh yeah? Did he ever tell you about the _fights_ he picked with the chibi-chan from Karasuno?”

From this angle, he could see the redness creeping up the back of Aone’s neck. He was so pale, it was really obvious. It was also his own damn fault for ratting him out to a little girl.

“Niisan always fights with aces,” Hitomi dismissively replied, flapping her free hand, to Kenji’s disappointment. In his meaner moments, it was kind of fun to mess with Aone about his crush. “Because he’s big, and strong, and blocks everything. But maybe he’d have more friends than a loud-mouthed jackass who’d come over if he didn’t scare everyone all the time.”

“ _Hitomi if I heard you swearing again_ —!” Aone-san called down the hallway, cutting across Kenji’s own shocked rebuke, and the three of them nearly dove under the bed together out of abject terror.  

“L-Let’s talk about something better,” Hitomi spluttered.

Aone nodded, emphatically.

“Riza-chan at school has a boyfriend now.”

“Does she,” Kenji replied, chin in hand, smirking. He couldn’t believe that ten-year-olds dated now, but neither could he believe that little girls gossiped about the same exact things as high schoolers. “And do you want a boyfriend next, Hitomi-chan?”

“Boys are too much maintenance. Look at how much _work_ it is just to get you two looking okay.”

And the little shit didn’t even _mean_ it cruelly. There were a lot of things testing Kenji’s patience today, and to his credit, he didn’t let his smile crack.

“Well, Hitomi-chan, I _did_ want to borrow a hair clip for practice, remember? I’m counting on your very valuable expertise in the matter.”

“I suppose you do need my help looking nice enough to get a boyfriend, too.”

He ground his teeth together in an effort to maintain his smile. “It’s volleyball practice, not a dating game show.”

“Yeah, but,” Hitomi started, peering up at him with That Stare again, “niisan’s crush plays volleyball, so that means that I’m working with volleyball-proof prettiness now. If it can’t stand a volleyball match, then what good is it for you two?”

Kenji shot Aone a _very specific_ look: _why am I getting dragged into your sister’s matchmaking?_

Aone just shrugged.

“This one has alligator teeth,” Hitomi declared and fastened a deep green and black striped clip into Kenji’s hair. “It won’t fall out no matter how much you run and jump, and I tested that myself. You can have it because I don’t really like green so much anymore.”

“Thank you, Hitomi-chan. I feel prettier already.”

“Do you have a crush, too?” she demanded.

Kenji cocked an eyebrow. “What does that matter?”

“Why else would boys want to look good? Leave it to the girls, otherwise.”

He personally could not _wait_ for Hitomi to grow up and be unleashed upon an unsuspecting public. He was _still_ trying to talk her into coming to practice or a practice match sometime, just to see how the rest of the team handled her, perhaps including certain troublesome upperclassmen as well. He’d pay good money for that.

“Maybe he does want to look good for volleyball practice,” Aone said, with uncharacteristic slyness, and Kenji glared at him over the top of Hitomi’s head.

“You’ll have to dress up _extra_ for our next practice match then, huh? We’ll give you a full makeover, make you the prettiest, and then _no one_ will resist your charms.”

Aone levelled a flat, unimpressed stare back at him.

Kenji leaned in closer, and at least had the grace to lower his voice before telling him, “I bet chibi-chan looks great with hair clips and barrettes, too. Is that why you carry around extras at matches?”

Aone shoved his hand in his face, and Kenji went down with an undignified squawk. He should have seen it coming.

“You two,” Hitomi said and heaved a sigh more becoming of a weary world leader than a little girl.

“You hurt the ones you love,” Kenji croaked, still being forced into the pink carpet by his teammate. Aone only let him up after he started kicking, albeit blindly and ineffectually.

Hitomi gave him a weird look, but he thought nothing of it.

That was the second mistake, and unfortunately was almost entirely his.

 

—

 

“So that’s becoming a thing, huh?” Mai asked, amused he hoped, as Kenji clipped his hair back out of his eyes at the start of practice.

“Maybe we could _all_ learn a thing or two about keeping our hair out of our eyes,” he replied, pointedly, and Onagawa quickly found the process of tying his shoelaces very interesting.

Sakunami, on the other hand, popped into practice with his bangs held back by a headband that was almost certainly a girl’s. Kenji, definitely _not_ having expected this to catch on, only stared at him for a moment too long. Poor, precious Sakunami quailed under his gaze.

“Someone needs to learn that actions have consequences, and trends _will_ start up even despite flippant attitudes,” Mai hissed at him. Then, she raised her voice, and told them, “That’s mine, and if anyone else would like to borrow anything in order to improve their performance, please let me know.”

Koganegawa took one look at Sakunami and opened his big mouth. Kenji cut in before this got out of hand. “Warm-ups, _now_! This isn’t a fashion show, this is volleyball practice, and I won’t have any more interruptions unless someone’s bleeding!”

“I like it when you get rough with us,” Obara called, just to be a brat, before Kenji threw a ball at him.

“That was very practical and straightforward! He wasn’t being rough with us, for once,” Koganegawa replied, perplexed, before Kenji got him running too with another bark of his name. Kenji didn’t _like_ playing the loud, mean captain card, but he did if need be. He still wasn’t quite sure how else to do it.

He wished today would be time for one of Moniwa’s visits, but it seemed like luck wasn’t on his side. None of the troublesome upperclassmen showed up. Normally, he would’ve been overjoyed. Kenji didn’t want to examine his feelings too closely, and instead snapchatted another selfie with the new barrette to Kamasaki, just because he _knew_ he’d screenshot it again.

“You’ve been sighing all day,” Mai said archly.

“Kinda wanted to ask Moniwa-senpai for more advice,” he glumly replied, because while he did sometimes fear their manager, he also valued her highly and would never do either of them the disservice of lying.

“Well, you can ask me!” she declared with a sparkle in her eye.

He brought this on himself, he reminded himself. “I _guess_.”

“I’m part of this team, too, and I’m here to help you all in any way I can. But if I can stop you from going grey early from over-thinking your role, then I’d love to help.”

Kenji sighed again as he checked his notifications. Kamasaki had already screenshotted it. “I feel like I’m stagnating with how to deal with Kogane and Sakunami. I know it’s up to them to work on their chemistry, but it’s draining just yelling at him over and over. I don’t know how else to approach him, though. Praise goes to his head, and he doesn’t see extra practice as a penalty.”

“For starters, don’t expect change to come quickly,” Mai advised, to his irritation.

“I _know_ that.”

“You’re just impatient.”

“Yeah, I kind of am.” How were people _supposed_ to deal with their underclassmen? He knew he’d been ungrateful, sure, and he could’ve dealt with a little shit like himself. Koganegawa was made of sparkles and sunlight and (too much) exuberance. Sakunami was made of puppies and rainbows and the kind of determination a kitten had when it’s trying to get down the stairs the first time. And Kenji was supposed to squish them together into a cohesive unit. “Not to mention the blocking issue,” he growled at his phone. “At this point, I’d take even _Kamasaki_ stopping by, that’s how desperate I am. Do you think if I called him, he’d take off work to come save me?”

“Why do you know his work schedule?” Mai asked suspiciously.

“Is it so wrong to want a bit of help?”

She patted him on the shoulder, a little too hard. “They’ll shape up. You’ve been doing a good job so far, captain, I promise.”

“Tell me that again,” Kenji whined and laid across the bench, putting his head in her lap. Bless her for doing nothing worse than smacking his nose _gently_ with her clipboard.

“Take your praise kink elsewhere, you filthy captain.”

“Nametsu! Where did you hear _such_ dirty terms!”

“Mai-chan is talking dirty?” Obara ducked into their conversation, grinning, and Kenji burst out laughing. She smacked him again for good measure. “Oh, I get it, this is captain’s privileges?”

“No, it’s reserved for whoever has the most blocks at practice. So get your ass in gear,” she shot back, and threatened to smack him, too.

Kenji slunk away from her while she was distracted. Praise kink his ass. Actually, no, his ass was fantastic and _deserved_ praise. But his captaincy skills didn’t, because he couldn’t smush his underclassmen together any better, and he had no fresh ideas to reach them. He felt, sometimes, like they were speaking different languages.

His phone buzzed in his hand, and he definitely did _not_ want to examine the way his heart flopped over in his chest at the sight of an _actual response_ from Kamasaki. He thought that’d only happened maybe once before, and that had probably been Sasaya’s fault.

He shouldn’t have been surprised to see his own selfie staring back at him, with devil horns and a snake tongue drawn over it. The caption only read “ _fixed it_ ”.

He was a nice person, he didn’t deserve this kind of shit.

Aone and Fukiage managed to wrestle him away from sending shirtless pictures in the changing room, and his night only got marginally better when Aone invited him over again for dinner. He was pretty sure his mother had some sort of complex about wanting to feed him, but her dinners were amazing, and it beat convenience store shit.

“Hitomi-chan, don’t ever send anyone pictures of themselves with bad scribbles on it, okay? It’s rude,” Kenji sighed, dramatically, sprawled across Aone’s bed on his back. He glared up at his phone. Hitomi happily played with his hair, even upside-down as he was.

“You deserved it,” Aone grunted.

“Boys can be so cruel,” Hitomi said, sympathetically, and clipped back another overly long lock of hair. “Niisan, why d’you have a crush on one?”

Aone mumbled something he wouldn’t repeat. Kenji, while clinging stubbornly to the dredges of his dark mood, wouldn’t let him suffer. “You don’t really get to choose to have a crush on someone, Hitomi-chan. They just happen, and you like that person, like everything about them.”

“Tell me what you like about your crush!” Hitomi imperiously demanded, predictably.

Aone shot him a particularly betrayed look.

“C’mon, he’s shy about this, you know that,” Kenji said and prodded at the little girl with his phone. “Be nicer about it. Why are you so curious?”

“Because _everyone_ has crushes at school except me, and I think they’re dumb.”

“That’s alright, too, you know. It’s not a race.”

“…What do you like about your crush?” she asked again, a little more reserved, definitely shyer. When she wasn’t acting so strong-willed, it was easy to see the family resemblance.

“…He’s determined,” Aone said in a very small voice.

Hitomi brightened at once. “Tell me more about him! He’s a good volleyball player, right? Like you?”

Aone nodded, and Kenji grinned. “Oh, he’s definitely good. They get crazy competitive, but never mean about it. That’s something you value a lot in volleyball, too.”

“Is he your age? Younger or older?”

“He’s younger,” Kenji answered. He wasn’t completely sure why _he_ was answering for Aone, but he didn’t mind, and he could see the degrees by which Aone’s shoulders relaxed. The teasing was kind of fun, but it wasn’t so fun to fluster him about it. Kenji wasn’t heartless, and Hitomi certainly didn’t mean it unkindly.

“Is he shorter? He’s gotta be, right?”

“Yeah, he’s shorter.” He tried to imagine that little blocker as anything coming close to their height. God, what a terrifying mental image.

“What’s his name?”

“Nope, that’s gotta be something your brother gives up on his own, alright?”

“Then why do _you_ know so much about him?” Hitomi asked suspiciously, eyes narrowed. “Do you know him too?”

“Oh, yeah, definitely.”

“Does everyone but me?!”

“No, definitely not. I’m just your brother’s best friend, or something, so it means we tell each other secrets. Or something.”

Aone laughed, very softly, at that. Kenji scowled, up at his phone, because he refused to be embarrassed about it. They were probably best friends, or something. Good friends, at least. Little girls could appreciate the importance of the title of best friend, though, so Hitomi dropped it with a thoughtful noise. “Or something?” she mumbled, and Kenji nodded, distracted.

He still needed to figure out how to respond to Kamasaki. It was probably incriminating enough that he’d taken so long—he probably would have to resign himself to not replying at all at this point. It wasn’t exactly a win in Kamasaki’s favor, but it didn’t sit well with him. Neither did the very tiny part of him that _still_ wanted to ask for advice.

Moniwa would be better, but he’d already asked him for so much. Surely even Moniwa’s saintly levels of patience could run out when dealing with a _maybe_ -insecure new captain. Maybe.

“What’s dating like?” Hitomi asked innocently.

“It’s waiting by your phone for hours trying to figure out how to reply to someone’s message,” Aone replied. Kenji rolled over onto his stomach with a nasty glare for his supposed best friend. That was fucking _uncalled for_.

“It’s hanging out with them, Hitomi-chan. Sometimes you deal with butterflies in your stomach about talking to them, but by the time you’re dating, you should be able to just talk normally to them. You can keep each other’s secrets, and go out together, but also stay in and just hang around with each other. And you do favors for each other, because you like each other.”

“What about candlelight dinners, and holding hands, and kissing?”

“Well, there’s that too,” he replied vaguely. He didn’t want to talk about any of the physical things with Hitomi, even as sharp as she was. That was definitely a conversation for their mother to have with her.

“Riza-chan says she kissed Kazuto-kun,” Hitomi declares with a fierce, disapproving frown. “I told her she should’ve waited until after the first date, because you’re not supposed to put out on the first date.”

“ _Hitomi-chan_! Where did you learn such language?” Kenji, to his credit, tried _very hard_ to seem disapproving himself, when instead he was two seconds from loud cackling.

“You can kiss someone if you’re dating,” Aone said, completely ignoring the fact that they were _ten_. When Kenji was ten, his biggest concern had been making sure he defended his Fastest Climber Of The Big Tree In The Park title. (He had.)

“Do you want to kiss your crush, niisan?”

Aone looked down at his lap with a very red face. Kenji tried to imagine just how far down he’d have to lean in order to kiss that guy, and almost laughed again at the mental image. He probably used up his asshole quota for today, so he should tone it down, he supposed.

“Don’t tease your brother,” Kenji said with a little _bop_ to her head. Hitomi turned on him like he’d just attempted murder. “Be nice to the people you like, and the ‘like’ here includes family members.”

“So I don’t have to be nice to you?”

“Kenji- _niichan_ , remember! I’m like your big brother, too, so be nice to me especially! And if even I can be nice to your brother, then you can do it, too.”

She gave him one last mistrustful look before returning to her work on his hair. Kenji wondered what it said about him that he’d willingly get into discussions like this with a little girl. He also wished, just once, she _would_ call him niichan. He’d probably like a little sister like her.

 

—

 

Hair accessories slowly became a staple at practice. He still hadn’t had time to cut his hair. Kamasaki still visited twice a week. Kenji still hadn’t asked any of the third years for further advice. Life went on.

Every day he became more convinced that Koganegawa Kanji was karmic retribution in human form for the way he’d behaved the past year and a half on the team. On the days when they managed to get him into halfway decent blocking form, his tosses were a mess. The days when he was an okay setter, he was either too busy making googly eyes at Sakunami to bother blocking, or he ended up serving into someone’s head. _Twice_. Kenji didn’t appreciate the headache.

He went back to an empty home, alone. He was used to it, but it didn’t help his mood—well, then again, it didn’t worsen it. It meant he got to take as long as he wanted in the bath.

As he soaked, he contemplated his silent phone. He had started messages to Moniwa three times so far, just this week. He didn’t know how to phrase it without seeming rude, or ungrateful, or confusing. Hell, he’d _accept_ being called needy, though he was certain Moniwa would never say that to his face.

Kenji sighed and resigned himself to… whatever. He didn’t even know what was in store for the team anymore. They were slipping down in tournament rankings, and while their reputation hadn’t suffered irreparably yet, he’d have to figure out a way to claw his way back up. Uphill battles were the worst. 

It’d be better if they could squeeze in another few practice matches before the Spring High prelims. He wasn’t sure how to convince the coach of that without making him seem like he wanted to pick fights, though, and his top choices for teams to challenge would _definitely_ make it seem like he held numerous grudges.

Maybe all of this year would turn out to be karmic retribution for his behavior.

 

—

 

The next day, he was accosted at lunch.

Kenji blinked up at Sasaya and Kamasaki, and then looked instinctively around for the third of their trio. “Moniwa can’t make it, but let us come to practice today!” Sasaya exclaimed, grinning.

“You’re… _asking_ me for permission to come?”

“We’re asking for your permission to actually come and practice with ya,” Kamasaki corrected, “so don’t be an ass about it.”

“Just give me a moment to pick up my jaw from the floor. You’re _asking_. For permission to come. You usually barge in, even if it’s to play with us.”

Sasaya clapped him too hard on the back, still grinning. “Well then, we’ll invite ourselves in! Thought we’d be nice, but as usual, niceness is lost on you, huh? You only respond to the rougher things in life.”

“I can appreciate niceness,” Kenji grumbled. “Why all of a sudden, though?”

“Nametsu asked us if we could come help whip the first years into shape. She says you’re struggling,” Kamasaki said, brimming with smugness, and Kenji set down his chopsticks with too much force.

“I am _not_! Does she think two washed-up old men would help us?”

“I see you still haven’t learned how to ask for help,” Sasaya said with a pitying sigh.

Kenji debated sacrificing his chopsticks to shove them up their noses. One for each of them.

“We’ll see you after class, then! Looking forward to seeing you on the court again!” Sasaya gave him a cheeky salute as he left. Kamasaki just threw his usual glare over his shoulder as he filed out after him.

Kenji hated how excited he was for practice, now. He’d have to buy Mai roses or diamonds or something. And then bitch her out for this grave betrayal.

By the time he made it to the gym after class, running a little late because of a classmate asking for notes to borrow, Koganegawa was already stammering out greetings to the upperclassmen and most of them were changed. Kenji just waved as he jogged past; Sasaya was trying to herd them into starting warm-ups (as usual, like trying to herd cats, as distracted as they were by the unexpected visitors) but Kamasaki followed him.

Kenji pretended not to notice as he stashed his things beneath the bench. Kamasaki plopped down on the far end of the other bench, one leg over each side, and _stared_.

“Sorry, senpai, did you _want_ to watch me change? I can put on more of a show if you’d like.” God _damn_ himself and his big mouth. Kenji couldn’t even look in his direction after that one, and he wouldn’t complain if he got smacked for that one.

“Nothing I haven’t seen before, jackass,” Kamasaki deadpanned.

Kenji heaved a sigh of relief into his jersey as he pulled it over his head. Only then did he turn to face him. “Then what do you want? It’s a little misleading to slink in after me for some private time, isn’t it?” Kamasaki had already changed, into old shorts and his usual t-shirt with the sleeves rolled up— _don’t look at his arms, don’t look at his arms_ —so there wasn’t much of a reason for him to have followed him in.

“What are you planning with the team?” he asked, uncharacteristically serious.

“Same thing as we’d planned before you retired. Train up Kogane, get Sakunami to steer him on court, and get Fukiage polished up to par.”

“That’s it? Just try to keep everyone afloat?”

“It would be a damn good start,” Kenji snapped. “You hardly played with Koganegawa, but let me tell you, it’s a _joy_ and a half. I cry myself to sleep every night because of how much I miss Moniwa-senpai.”

“No wonder you feel like you’re spinning your wheels, if all you’re doing is trying to babysit,” Kamasaki declared with a snooty look down his nose. Kenji bristled. “Your job is to turn it into a _team_ , not trying to put everyone on some weird level and haul others onto it with you. You need new skills—”

“I’m working on my serves, and so is Onagawa,” he cut in. “I’d be satisfied if Kogane could toss halfway reliably before all else.”

“And have you talked to Koganegawa about extra practice, or have you just snapped at him like you always do?”

“What do you take me for, _you_?”

“At least I’m trying to help you—”

“I’m _trying_ , okay?!” Kenji burst out without meaning. He thought his voice cracked with the emotion of it, but his memory refused to acknowledge it. 

Kamasaki stared at him, and Kenji felt the shame and anger crawl up his neck. He turned from him, grabbing his water bottle, and fled the locker room with no real dignity left. Kamasaki was supposed to be the one who legitimately lost his temper over stupid things. Kenji was supposed to be coy and un-serious and definitely not be having a minor freak-out about this in front of _Kamasaki_ , of all people.

Kenji, perhaps childishly, refused to speak another word directly to Kamasaki for the rest of practice. It worked out surprisingly well, even if Sasaya and Aone kept shooting bewildered looks at the back of his head. Mai seemed smug about going over his head to ask them for help, and he wouldn’t hold it against her, especially since they seemed to have taken it as a personal challenge to drill Koganegawa on different kinds of tosses until he could hardly raise his arms.

Aone wordlessly invited him over to his place after practice. Kenji agreed.

He _knew_ he needed to thank them for their help today, but his pride wouldn’t let him approach Kamasaki directly, so he settled for a casual, “I’ll buy you both lunch sometime!” over his shoulder on the way out.

“Me too!” Mai called back.

“Anything you want, babe!”

Obara and Fukiage hooted over his word choice, as usual, and he managed to escape without any more interaction. He hardly managed to contain it until they got to Aone’s, before burying his face in his hands and groaning, loudly.

“I’m an asshole.”

He could sense Aone’s concern radiating off of him, though he didn’t look through his fingers at him.

“Nametsu asked them for help for me, and they _did_ help, and all I did was snap at Kamasaki like the ungrateful kouhai I always am to him. Why am I such an asshole?”

“You’re not,” Aone replied, and next thing he knew, Kenji was pulled into his arms, like some hysterical girl who’d just gotten rejected or something.

“I _am_ , you don’t have to lie to my face,” Kenji laughed. He rested his forehead against Aone’s shoulder, hands leaving his face to begrudgingly hook around Aone’s waist. “This is pretty gay, though. Thanks.”

Aone made a confused noise, but before Kenji could continue to deflect (badly) with humor, Hitomi burst into the room.

She froze upon seeing them hugging, eyes wide, and while Kenji dropped his arms, they didn’t back away from each other. Whatever words she’d so urgently needed to share died away, and instead, in a small voice so unlike her, she asked, “Are you okay, Kenji-niichan?”

“Ah, you called me niichan!” he crowed, delighted, and ducked out of Aone’s grasp in order to scoop her up. She kicked and scowled and even tried to bite him. “You cheered me right up, my precious Hitomi-chan. What did I do to deserve such a good little sister?”

“I’m not your sister! Put me _down_!” Finally, with a sharp yank on his hair, Kenji set her down. She looked ready to kick him again for good measure, but instead, she peered suspiciously up into his face. “You seemed upset, and you’re supposed to be nice to people when they’re upset, right?”

“That’s true, but I wasn’t upset.”

“Then why was niisan being nice to you?”

“He just likes me, I guess.” And Aone, bless him, let that slide, too. Kenji did not want to explain his insecurities and giant Kamasaki-shaped problem to his friend’s little sister.

Hitomi squinted at him, then at her brother, then back at him. “…I’m telling,” she said, solemnly, and bolted for the door. She only briefly paused to throw back over her shoulder, “And kaasan says dinner is ready now, since you two got in so late! Wash up!”

Kenji waited until she thundered down the stairs before repeating, “Thanks, man.”

Aone nodded, silent.

They washed their hands, Kenji finally took out the hair clip from practice, and when they made it downstairs, Hitomi was already seated at the table looking like the cat who got the canary. That wasn’t too out of the norm, to be fair, but Kenji wasn’t really ready for the sly smirk that their _mother_ sent him. Apparently, neither was her son.

Aone sat down gingerly, like he was expecting something, and that had Kenji nervous, too.

“You two look like you’re guilty about something,” Aone-san said, lightly, and set down glasses of water in front of each of them. “Anything you’d like to share?”

‘ _I’m telling_ ’, Hitomi had said, but telling _what_? Kenji had never gotten in trouble with Aone’s mother in his life. It was something he was very proud of, especially in his comparison to his troublemaking track record elsewhere.

“I understand that it’s your personal life, and Hitomi shouldn’t pry _or_ gossip,” their mother began, with a careful look toward her daughter.

Kenji nervously tucked his hair behind his ear, shooting Aone frantic _what the hell is going on am I about to get grounded_ looks. Aone, for his part, had about the same expression. Kenji rarely saw fear on his face, but he saw it now.

“But you know that I’ve tried to be very supportive of your sexuality, and I want you to know that I’m nothing but happy for you both!” With that, Aone-san set down the platter of chicken and sat, beaming bright enough to have been borderline illegal. Astronauts could see that smile from space.

“Uh,” Kenji said, smartly.

Hitomi looked impossibly smugger.

“When you told me you had a crush on another player, Takanobu, I’d thought it was on another team for some reason.”

It clicked with the same effect as a bucket of ice water down their backs. Kenji’s mouth fell open, and he gaped at Aone, staring hard with a _Me? ME?_ look.

“I’ll speak with Hitomi about keeping this secret, if you two prefer. As it stands, I’m more than happy to allow Kenji-kun to continue visiting, but you shouldn’t be doing anything that you wouldn’t want me or Hitomi to walk in on. I’ll trust you, but do not abuse this trust—”

“Aone-san,” Kenji croaked, weakly. “I think—”

“Kenji-niichan still spends most of his time here using all my hair clips, anyway, I’m sure they won’t be kissing and stuff when he’s too busy trying to look better for niisan,” Hitomi pointed out, shrewdly, and Aone buried his face in his hands. Kenji was two seconds from joining him.

 _She called me niichan again_ , he thought, and then, _why am I letting her get away with saying this shit?_ “I don’t. I don’t need to look _better_ , that was for practice, remember, Hitomi-chan?” he asked with a strained smile. He flicked his hair out of his eyes with a jerk of his head to make a point.

“You knew everything about his crush because you _were_ his crush!” Hitomi accused. "And you said he loved you, and you said you liked him!" 

“If you’d like us to pretend none of this happened, we will,” Aone-san pointed out, a hand placed on her daughter’s arm. “I can talk to Hitomi about this—”

“Why! I deserve to know!”

“Don’t be nosy, sweetheart.”

Kenji swallowed down the panicked laughter bubbling up his throat. “We’re not—!” He swallowed down his first attempt, too, shooting Aone a narrow-eyed look, because the big lug was a useless lump of familial embarrassment right now. The secondhand embarrassment was about to do him in. But he wouldn’t have two unintentional outbursts today, so Kenji cleared his throat, unclenched his fists, and tried again. “It’s not like that.”

“I don’t know what all the terms are these days,” Aone-san said, “but I’ll try not to offend.”

Nobody had ever _tried not to offend_ Kenji before in his life. A wild bark of laughter escaped him before he could tamp it back down. Aone peeked up at him, guarded, and _pleading_. Kenji, fluent in Aone’s looks, had no idea what he was trying to say.

He was sitting at a pleasant family dinner, with a little girl who was finally calling him niichan, and a mother who was more in his life than his own, with his best friend who had just awkwardly fumbled his way through comforting him about his childish issues. “We’re not… dating,” Kenji forced out.

“Oh—oh my, I’m so sorry!” Aone-san exclaimed, reddening just like her son.

Hitomi was the only one immune. “You _said_ he liked you! And you’re shorter than him, and younger than him, and you’re _really good_ at volleyball just like him!”

“Hitomi-chan, don’t you think that’s reaching, just a little bit?” Kenji groaned. “Aone likes—” And _that_ look, he did recognize from his friend. That was definitely his _no do not under any circumstance do that_ face. (It was usually reserved for when he tried to pick fights with other players.) Kenji faltered, just for a moment, and then looked back at Aone-san. “We haven’t… gotten that far?”

“Even if I like you, you aren’t allowed to put out on the first date, remember,” Hitomi gravely told him.

“ _Hitomi_!”

“Excuse me,” Aone finally gritted out, and pushed away from the table without touching his food.

“Taka—” his mother began, but Kenji had already slid out from his chair, following him up the stairs. The sounds of Aone-san reprimanding her daughter about privacy and rumors followed them all the way to Aone’s room, until he closed the door.

Aone sunk down into his chair, hands fisted in his short hair, and Kenji stood in front of him, completely unsure as to what to do.

“…Why don’t you want them to know about your crush on the Karasuno chibi-chan?” he finally settled on.

Aone shook his head.

“Half the team knows. I’m pretty sure half of _Karasuno_ knows. Anyone who watched the match saw the way you two were at it the entire time.”

Aone shook his head, harder.

“I know Hitomi-chan is loud, and I know you want her to come to a match…” And no matter what she was told, she’d scream about it the entire time, and wouldn’t _that_ be a way to be outed. It almost made that disastrous dinner look tame in comparison. “Okay, I get it. Kind of. But did I cover right? I had no idea what you wanted from me, there, and now we’re going to have to deal with your mom having weird thoughts about us.”

“I don’t want them to know about Hinata,” Aone said quietly. Kenji sighed, and nodded, and tapped his foot. He’d wait him out. “I don’t… I don’t care otherwise.”

“Hitomi-chan seems to think I’m a convenient crush source, but I have to admit, I kind of expected it from her before you. I’m fine playing decoy for you, by the way. I wish it hadn’t blindsided us, but I could get used to the tune of _niichan_.”

Aone glared up at him, unimpressed with his flippancy.

Kenji shrugged. “You just managed to out _me_ to your mother and sister, and somehow I ended up being your crush. I’m allowed to be a little bitchy about this.”

“Sorry.”

“I’m not _really_ mad,” Kenji groaned, because he could never fake-mad with Aone. “…Your mom seemed really happy, huh.”

Aone nodded, and went back to hanging his head.

“I think my dad would beat me if he found out like _that_ that I was dating a guy,” Kenji laughed, humorlessly. “You’re pretty lucky, man.”

Aone didn’t respond (again), so Kenji sat down on the edge of his bed, and kicked at Aone’s foot with his slipper. Still no response.

“C’mon, don’t look like such a kicked dog. I won’t tell anyone about your actual crush. What actually changes if Hitomi-chan is a little nicer to me, huh?”

“You don’t have to lie for me.”

“We technically didn’t lie,” Kenji mused.

They lapsed into silence. It was rare that Aone genuinely retreated into a mood like this, and Kenji, for once, didn’t want to try to push him out of it.

“As far as I see it, I have two choices right now. I awkwardly leave and let your family interrogate you, or we both go back downstairs, and I continue covering for you. And if it’s all the same to you, I’d rather get dinner.”

Aone looked up at him again, still wary, but less so.

“There’s not really any loss in pretending to be dating, or crushing, or whatever, is there? Hitomi-chan may have a big mouth, but it’s not like she’ll show up at school tomorrow with us. I like seeing your mom happy, and I can use this an excuse to come over for dinner more without guilt. It’s not so bad, is it?” he asked, testing, more unsure than he usually was.

Aone reddened, scowled, and turned from him.

But that wasn’t a no.

“Unless you plan on confessing to the Karasuno chibi-chan in the next five minutes, I’m going to go back downstairs, tell your mother that she embarrassed you to death, and eat your food, too. And you’ll let me spout whatever bullshit I want about our newfound relationship—”

“Stop.”

Contrary to his plans, Aone accompanied him back downstairs, and they both brushed off Aone-san’s frantic apologizing and Hitomi’s less-than-genuine attempts.

And Kenji casually re-introduced himself as Aone Takanobu’s new boyfriend, and finished eating dinner with them. Honestly, nothing much changed.

(That was their final, and worst mistake of all.)


	2. pearls (some of his best taunts) before swine (it's just a practice match after all)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The one where Oikawa showed up and Kenji stared too much at Kamasaki's back.

“I’m going to shove the net pole up his ass if he doesn’t get his shit together,” Kenji growled, still rubbing his head from where Koganegawa had served into it. Mai held up an ice pack, but he knew it wasn’t bad; he just wanted to grouse.

Sakunami may be getting better with directing Koganegawa _where_ on the court he wanted him to go, but it did little for his tosses themselves. And serving, well, that was always a person’s own private hell. Half the time, with blocking, he crashed into someone, too. Koganegawa’s height was a valuable asset, but it bit them in the ass when his tosses were _too high_. Those few centimeters between himself and them had never felt sharper.

“The practice match is _tomorrow_.”

Mai had been working her ass off trying to convince the coach of what specific teams they wanted to challenge, and for the most part, he had come through for them. Kenji hadn’t suffered at all with supposed grudges or his ego talking for him. It had been great.

Less great was that Koganegawa, while _blessedly_ not too much worse under pressure as he was normally, wasn’t going to shape up in time. He needed to work under fire, and they were running out of _time_ to do it.

“Isn’t it kind of mean, throwing them up against Aoba Johsai as they are?” Mai asked after prying his hand away from his head to put the ice pack on _anyway_.

“I’m not Moniwa. I’m not a kind captain,” he drawled.

“You’re a mess, too, you know.”

“And you’re mean.” They didn’t have time for them to shape up before Spring High. They needed fast and hard practice, and all the practice matches they could scrape together. He knew Seijoh had probably only accepted the match request for their reputation, hoping to practice against strong blocks; if nothing else, at least the team could still offer that, even with Koganegawa throwing himself recklessly in every direction.

“You get this really creepy look on your face when you’re over-thinking things, you know. It doesn’t suit you at all. And I say ‘creepy look’ as someone who’s known you for over a year,” Mai informed him, and pressed a little harder against his skull to grab his attention.

“Well, what do you think I should do?”

“The high and mighty Futakuchi-san asking someone else for help? Seriously?”

“And _that_ is why I haven’t asked anyone else,” he lamented. “No one can look past my roguish exterior to see just what a gentle soul I am on the inside.”

“I don’t think you have a gentle atom in your body.”

“You certainly don’t.”

“ _Someone_ has to take care of you boys. If you genuinely want to know what I think, then I say use your remaining time to try to work on team unity, and encourage serving and blocking practice the most. Kanji-kun is decent at blocking, at least, and the serve and block combo has always been a strong point of the team,” Mai advised, nicely even, and Kenji gave her a wide-eyed, grateful look, unspeakably touched.

She swatted him in the back of the head, right over his bruise, and laughed at the way he cringed.

“Don’t look so happy! Have you forgotten who has the best serves on the team?”

Right.

Kenji resigned himself to even _more_ time spent helping Koganegawa. The hellish pet project he never wanted.

 

—

 

Not a surprise: the three retired third years in the stands, ready for their practice match.

Definitely a surprise: the mother and daughter also in the stands.

Kenji and Aone stared in growing horror up at his family. Their ‘relationship’ had, actually, been startlingly easy to maintain. Absolutely _nothing_ on their end changed, in fact. Kenji still had dinner over at his place, maybe now a little more frequently. Hitomi called him niichan now. A few times, Aone-san had sent along an extra lunch with her son to give to Kenji.

The boys still studied together, still discussed team strategy, still played with Hitomi with her wide array of hair accessories and school gossip. (Kenji had tried calling him Taka once, but they’d both gotten too embarrassed by it.) Aside from that single, mortifying night, literally nothing had changed with the advent of their pretend relationship.

And it had always been carefully _separate_. They didn’t have to bother doing anything different at school or practice. No one else knew.

But now, they both watched as Aone’s mother cheerfully introduced herself and Hitomi to the third years, and thanked them for their work with “her boys”.

“Taka-niisan!” Hitomi cheered, hanging over the edge of the railing to wave at him. “Kenji-niichan!”

The third years looked vaguely confused at the affectionate name. Aone-san waved down to them both, too.

“Kick their asses, ‘kay!” Hitomi called brightly.

“ _Hitomi_ , language! I-I’m so sorry about that!”

“They know it’s a secret relationship, right?” Kenji asked with the air of someone’s soul slowly leaking out of their body. Aone nodded, looking similar. ‘Hitomi’ and ‘secret’ didn’t belong in the same sentence, unless it’s “Hitomi absolutely cannot keep a secret”. Kenji wanted to have faith in her mother, but considering that one family dinner…

“Your sister is adorable!” Obara exclaimed, coming over to them, likely wondering what the hold up was. “Your mother is really pretty, too, huh? It’ll be nice having some girls cheer for us.”

Mai loudly cleared her throat, behind them. “We have a practice match to get to, if you’re all done fawning over the audience?”

The Seijoh team was almost done warming up, and from what he could tell, there were a few curious looks at the tiny audience in the stands. They probably recognized the third years, at least, and the hair color probably gave Aone’s family away. So even the opposing team knew who they’d be cheering for, and who little Hitomi would eventually out.

 _So this is what it’s like to look down the barrel of a gun_ , Kenji sullenly mused. There were worse feelings. Their teammates would tease—him, never Aone—but they’d probably be good with it. Who knew what Seijoh would do or say. Maybe they wouldn’t let this get around the school.

Maybe she’d just say something that they could pass off as a little girl’s nonsense. Maybe she’d be too distracted by an actual volleyball match that she wouldn’t even have time to spout shit.

“Why do you look like you’ve seen a ghost?” Onagawa asked suspiciously.

“At my funeral, I want Kamasaki-senpai to lower me into my grave, so he can let me down one last time,” Kenji replied. Aone snorted.

The match began.

To his immense and sudden delight, however, Koganegawa really stepped up. He had a curious way of working under pressure, but this was one of the first practice matches they’d had since he’d found his groove with Sakunami, and it was paying off. Seijoh was immediately cautious, especially after Kenji’s first serve and Aone’s killer block that followed it, and even if Seijoh still had their third years, Kenji found himself a little less afraid of getting steamrolled.

Onagawa, too, seemed to only fight back harder when the match was more real. Kenji made note to keep an eye on that. He and Aone still made up the practiced bulk of the Iron Wall, of course, with either Obara or Fukiage stepping up when they didn’t want to risk Koganegawa. (Not that it stopped him from racing across the court to valiantly try to help his teammates. Kenji suffered the most bruises from those collisions.)

Of course, Seijoh was still as terrifying as ever. Oikawa managed to get five points off his first serve streak, three of them no-touch, before Koganegawa managed to turn the tide, after a scarily long volley—with a successful setter dump, of all things. Kenji wanted to hug him. He swiftly quashed the feeling.

The first set went to Seijoh, but it was by the skin of their teeth. Kenji couldn’t be happier, and with a lighter feeling in his chest, he turned to his team and declared, “Don’t be afraid to get louder out there! I want more cheering when we score, _especially_ when we block. Every single time, got it? That means _you_ , Kogane.”

“You want us to yell,” Onagawa said dubiously.

“Absolutely. We need to hype ourselves up, and utterly destroy the other team’s morale. We _still_ have the highest blocking rate in the country, remember? Let’s make them remember that, too!”

Optimism came naturally to Kenji, something which _still_ seemed to surprise his teammates. (Well, _realistic_ optimism. Grounded optimism. Not the kind of optimism that allowed him to do anything more than sigh about his captaincy.) He clapped to make his point, and the team scattered back onto the court for the second set.

By their fifth point—they had the lead now, barely, but they maintained it—the third years had caught on to their renewed cheering vigor and joined in with at least double their noise. It almost warmed Kenji’s heart. A little. Their support still meant too much to him, probably.

How embarrassing.

He had to drag the team through hyping them, annoyingly enough, but at least he could see that Seijoh was just as annoyed at the noise as he was for making it. He _knew_ Koganegawa could get loud. He was usually loud. He didn’t want the meek routine right now.

It didn’t help matters that Aone was still trying to pick a fight with the Seijoh ace, too. To the guy’s credit, he didn’t seem overtly bothered, but Kenji didn’t have the time to drag him away in the _middle of a match_. He wondered if he was trying to show off, however subconsciously, for his family.

But they were winning the set. So Kenji kept his complaining to himself.

Dateko hit twenty points first, thanks to a particularly fierce block from Aone to their #4, and Kenji was getting a rasp to his voice from the yelling. The third years had begun their school cheer—it had to be some kind of Pavlovian bullshit that he wanted to try that much harder when hearing that “ _go go let’s go, let’s go Dateko!_ ”—and when he risked a glance up into the stands, he saw them trying to coach Hitomi into joining them, too.

They hadn’t noticed him watching, but Hitomi did, and her excited waving down to him managed to smack Kamasaki in the face.

Kenji pretended to wipe a tear away, then gave them both a coy wiggle of his fingers, before returning to the match.

Dateko took the second set. No one was more surprised than Kenji, probably, because his team was a trainwreck and no amount of optimism could have saved them. But they did, and he felt a curious warmth flood his chest, especially as Koganegawa and Fukiage turned to him, looking for praise.

Step one: praise team.

“Good job, guys!” Kenji called, half-hoarse, beaming as he slapped backs and ruffled hair and did all those nice things captains should to show support. “ _This_ is the team I knew we could be! Kicking ass and taking names, I like it—now _keep it up_ through to the end!”

Step two: declare dominance.

Aone made a swipe for him, knowing Kenji’s usual methodology. Onagawa broke into a sharp smirk and eagerly watched the captain strut over to the net. It looked like the Seijoh captain and vice were arguing about something.

“Oh, Oikawa-saaaan,” Kenji nearly sang, making a beckoning gesture. “Hadn’t I heard you say something about not breaking a sweat earlier?”

Oikawa tossed his (sweaty) hair and huffed.

Aone, having enlisted Obara, finally caught up to him and dragged him away from the net. It didn’t stop him from shouting, “It ain’t gonna suck itself, Oikawa!”

“You’re a constant embarrassment, aren’t you?” Obara growled in his ear, as the team quickly hid him from Oikawa’s indignant squawk and the coach’s ire.

“Behave,” Aone grunted. He jerked his head toward the stands, and Kenji only belatedly hoped Hitomi and Aone-san hadn’t heard that. The last thing Hitomi needed was more terms to add to her already extensive vocabulary.

The third set started with a change of team on Seijoh’s side. Kenji raised an eyebrow—he recognized Yahaba, the creampuff prick, Oikawa’s little pet and likely replacement—but the blond with the scowl and eyeliner was new. Oikawa and one of the first years sat out, and Dateko shifted uneasily on their side of the net.

And, as it turned out, he was a menace on the court.

He literally _growled_ at Koganegawa, he stole Seijoh’s own spikes, and the had the power of a charging rhino. Kenji’s hand stung from where one of his spikes had bounced off of it. He wasn’t any harder to stop than their ace, but somehow, he seemed louder about it.

“I guess even stable ol’ Seijoh had a couple tricks up their sleeve,” Onagawa mumbled as he shifted to the back line beside Kenji.

“See how his receives are. Hit a good serve!” Kenji pointedly raised his voice, and Fukiage weakly echoed him. Kenji snorted derisively at the lack of excitement. Just because their opponents got weird didn’t mean Dateko was any less for it.

Well, the new guy was even more of a mess than Koganegawa, which was saying something. He cost Seijoh more than enough points, though they were still trailing. It seemed whatever groove they had hit had evaporated. Kenji wished it’d come back.

They lost the third set after it went into deuce just before Oikawa’s serve. Basically a death blow. 

 _Just a practice match_ , he thought sourly, eyeing the back of Koganegawa’s jersey, while the kid in question apologized profusely to Sakunami. There was hope for him. It was slim, but Kenji would hold onto it until his hands bled, if that’s what it took.

“Good job guys!” Mai said as soon as they gathered on the sidelines. Kenji wiped his face with his jersey to hide his frown. She said that no matter what. “Especially you, Kanji-kun!”

“I’m so sorry!” And he nearly hit her with his bow, too.

“Wh-What are you apologizing for?”

“He’s apologizing for everything, right now. I don’t know what he’s up to,” Onagawa drawled, side-eyeing Koganegawa.

“Last I heard, it was his run-up for that failed dump shot. Because, y’know, traditionally they don’t _need_ run-ups,” Obara added and elbowed a weepy Koganegawa in the side. The first year went down with a pathetic whine, and Kenji rolled his eyes. Sakunami crouched down beside him to pat at his knee in consolation. “Well, it wasn’t a bad match—”

“Caaaaaaaaptain-kun!”

Oh no.

Kenji turned, shoulders hunched, and glowered at Oikawa, who had already come prancing over. Two of his teammates followed him, hopefully to reel him back. (He doubted it, as the steady ace wasn’t among them.)

“It’s Futakuchi,” Kenji replied, and schooled his face into a mask of perfect, distant indifference. It was always the face that got Kamasaki the maddest. “Which you should know, as a fellow captain. Oh, unless you aren’t very bright! I’m sorry—let me give you some advice, Oikawa-san. It’s a good idea to know other powerhouses and their teams.”

“What a cute, _little_ captain-kun,” Oikawa cooed. It clearly wasn’t a remark about how tall he was. “I guess I’m not used to your senpai not reining you back all the time.” His eyes lingered on Aone in a way that made Kenji bristle. “But good match, good match! It’s important to train up the younger generation, isn’t it?”

Kenji just stared at him, eyes hooded.

Oikawa cocked his head to the side, blinking those stupidly big doe eyes at him. “I thought you were all about snappy retorts. I’m sorry, did my team crush your spirits that badly already? I didn’t mean to do it in just a practice match!”

“No, I was just surprised,” Kenji said, adopting a perfectly shocked tone. Oikawa made a confused noise. “I was surprised how well you could speak around sucking your own dick for so long!”

Oikawa’s expression dipped immediately into a glare, and his two teammates badly hid giggles behind him. Aone pushed at Kenji’s shoulder, but he wouldn’t budge. (Not before a coach started shouting at him, anyway.)

“Kenji-niichan!”

Or for that. The group of boys parted skittishly as the little girl ran up, breathless with excitement, bright-eyed and pigtailed and ten kinds of cute and innocent. Even Oikawa balked.

Like fuck he was continuing this with Hitomi right there. “Good game,” he flatly told Oikawa, and scooped Hitomi up, carrying her on his hip. “Thanks for cheering us on, Hitomi-chan! I heard you even from the stands.”

“I’m supposed to tell you it was a good game, even though you lost,” she informed him.

Oikawa snickered before he slunk off. Kenji was pretty sure he heard his teammates say something about losing a bet that there wouldn’t be a fistfight.

“Okay, so, good game,” Hitomi said. “Taka-niisan, put me on your shoulders now. I gotta be taller than all you giraffes!”

Hitomi kicked a little too much as Kenji handed her off to her brother, and most of the team watched ardently as she climbed him like a stoic tree. Koganegawa had stopped his sniffling, and Mai broke into a grin. “You’re so tall, Hitomi-chan, even better than these _giraffes_.” She barely got the last word out before chuckling. “Thank you for coming to cheer us on today.”

“This is Mai-chan,” Kenji introduced at Hitomi’s distrustful look.

“It’s a _boys_ volleyball team.”

“She’s our beloved manager,” Obara explained. Hitomi fixed him with an equally suspicious look, until Kenji sighed, gave in, and introduced everyone. There was no way she was going to remember all that, but at least she stopped looking at their teammates like they were something she stepped in.

“Why’d you have to get a crush on a boy if a girl was right there the whole time? She’s way prettier,” Hitomi asked, bending over to look her brother in the eye.

Mai laughed again, just a little nervously. Aone avoided eye contact with all of them. “Well, thank you, Hitomi-chan. But I like your brother like you like him—we’re kind of like adopted siblings.”

“Like Kenji-niichan!”

“Yes, like that.”

“You’re still prettier,” Hitomi declared, nose in the air.

“Nice match, guys!” And cue the third years. Kenji reflexively put a hand up to steady Hitomi as she craned around to look. Moniwa beamed the brightest, something that made Kenji’s heart stutter just a bit in his chest, and he clapped the nearest—Fukiage—on the back. “You’ve already made great progress, I can hardly believe it!”

“Thank you!” Koganegawa exclaimed, starry-eyed.

“Just keep working on your tosses, okay?”

Koganegawa drooped a bit again. Kenji didn’t particularly pity him.

“Do you guys have to come to everything we do?” Kenji asked to mask how grateful he was. He only hoped he’d be able to speak to Moniwa alone afterward.

“It’s our team too!” Sasaya exclaimed with a fake wounded expression. “Let us be proud of how hard our kouhai have been working!”

“Besides, we weren’t countin’ on the fact that you’d already have a cheering section,” Kamasaki added. He glanced up at Hitomi, grinning, and she even smiled back. Kenji frowned; he wanted her to go back to the slight disdain she held for the rest of the non-Mai team members. “Aone, what a cute big bro you make. Maybe if you kept her around all the time, other teams wouldn’t be scared shitless of you, huh?”

“You said a bad word,” Hitomi whispered, utterly _delighted_.

Kamasaki blanched. Moniwa smacked him, too light, as usual.

“Even _I_ don’t do that,” Kenji hissed at him. He liked to think he hid his smugness well. Kamasaki turned to him, eyes narrowed, mouth twisted, but there was something _else_ in his expression that gave Kenji pause. He realized, a little too late, that they hadn’t really talked directly since his outburst in the locker room. Yikes.

“That’s not true,” Moniwa started, disapproving, “we got to field inquiries about what ‘sucking it’ meant. Your mother is terrifying, Aone-kun.”

Aone and Kenji glanced back, just in case, to double-check to make sure that the woman in question was still talking to their coach. They were safe. For the moment. Damage control time.

“What wasn’t going to suck itself?” Hitomi asked.

“ _Geh_.” He didn’t like her curiosity any more than he liked the way the three third years turned on him, in unison. It was creepy. “W-Well, Hitomi-chan, you know sometimes how you say things suck? It’s like that.”

“Oh. Huh. What about shitless? Is it like—”

“Don’t say that word, either!” Kamasaki hurriedly broke in.

“It’s a very bad word, don’t repeat it. Kamasaki is a bad boy who shouldn’t have said it, either,” Kenji agreed, unable to help himself. Kamasaki shot him another look, which was thankfully a little closer to his usual irritated one.

“That’s bad,” Hitomi said and lightly kicked at Kamasaki’s shoulder. He nearly wept with relief, and just in time, too, since Aone-san came over with the coach.

“Good job, boys! That match was so exciting!”

“I was just talking with Aone-san about your teamwork. She was very impressed,” Coach Oiwake told them, and Kenji could’ve wept himself at the pride in the man’s voice. “But the fact of the matter is that you have two rounds of penalties to do, and I don’t see it happening.”

The team sighed as one.

“Here,” Aone-san said, and took her daughter, despite how Aone had to stoop to let her down. Moniwa seemed to find the entire scene cute. (The other two retirees were horrible jackasses who only laughed behind their hands at the penalties.)

“I thought they were done,” Hitomi pouted.

“We’ll be home soon,” Aone replied with an obscenely adorable ruffle of her hair. Kenji, even as used to them as he was, metaphorically had to clutch his heart at the sight of the stoic big brother and cute little sister act. Onagawa looked like he was having a religious experience. Sakunami looked close to tears.

“Kenji-niichan, come over for dinner again! Since I guess you did good!” Hitomi demanded.

“You could take out the ‘I guess’,” he flatly replied, fighting to hide his grin.

“Why does he get such preferential treatment, huh?” Sasaya teased, and Hitomi swiveled around on him like a bird of prey spotting a small, tasty mouse.

It was worse than if she’d been looking at them. Kenji sighed and stared back down the barrel of that gun.

Aone-san seemed to likewise know what was coming, and she tugged Hitomi closer to her, trying to get moving to get space between them. But the third years went with them, sensing a convenient escape to let Dateko do their penalty laps, unwittingly ruining everything further.

“Niichan gets to come over because he’s niisan’s boyfriend, and they’re both the _best players_ of the team. Duh.”

Hitomi’s voice carried, of course.

 _So this is what it feels like to die_ , Kenji thought distantly.

It was weird, to be outed like this, even for a relationship that didn’t exist. He hadn’t really thought he’d care. In some way, he _didn’t_ , because the team was cool with Aone’s crush (as unspoken as it was between them) and no one really talked about dating all that often, anyway. He could calmly tell them all later that yeah, he was probably bi, and yeah, he was dating Aone, or something. At least, inasmuch as making Hitomi happy and getting free food.

But Kenji was _painfully_ aware of two things, in the silence that ensued after Hitomi’s declaration:

  1. Aoba Johsai was still in the gym, if on the far side, and had likely heard this too.
  2. Kamasaki, with his back to them as he’d made to follow the mother and daughter out, had his shoulders set in a rigid line, and thus Kenji could not see his expression from behind.



He was reasonably certain that the second bothered him more, and on the heels of that realization, Kenji knew he shouldn’t have prioritized it like that. One of the top teams in the prefecture was going to assume he and Aone were both gay—and after the shit he’d said to Oikawa, he wouldn’t be surprised if he was going to get jumped the second he left the gymnasium.

(At least it meant any further bullshit toward Oikawa would be even more effective, because who’d want a _gay guy_ telling them to _suck it_? Kenji needed the silver lining.)

But he _needed_ , above anything else, to see what kind of face Kamasaki was making.

“We have penalties,” Aone said flatly. He sounded impressively normal, all things considered. He shoved at the nearest—Koganegawa—and added, “Seals.”

“You do still have penalties, and I’m not seeing them,” Oiwake said pointedly. Aone smacked Fukiage to get him moving and Koganegawa frantically stumbled forward to avoid a similar fate.

Kenji was the last to get moving, still staring at Kamasaki’s back. Moniwa’s smile was strained, but at least he _was_ smiling, right? Who was he kidding, he _knew_ Moniwa was a nervous smiler. Sasaya was the only one he trusted. Sasaya made some vaguely reassuring gesture over his shoulder as they walked off with Aone-san. Kenji wanted to trust that, too.

Aoba Johsai was no loss; they weren’t exactly friendly with each other to begin with, and he and Oikawa had already been at each other’s throats. He didn’t care if they hated him. He’d fucking fight if they wanted to start shit with Aone, but no one really wanted to start shit with Aone; being unapproachable came with the territory of being huge and bulky and having won Olympic gold for resting bitch face.

They’d known this was a possibility.

But still, somehow, Kenji felt like he’d lost more than a practice match and a bit of dignity.

 

—

 

“I’m so sorry,” Aone-san started, despite the boys’ awkward fidgeting. “We had a long talk about secrecy and people’s personal lives, but she’s just…”

“It’s okay,” Kenji said, and Aone nodded. “We knew it was probably going to happen.”

The woman looked only _slightly_ relieved. She wouldn’t meet either of their eyes, but she kept making little, abortive movements toward her son. “Hitomi is grounded for two weeks. Will you two be okay? Your team seems nice, but—”

“It’s fine,” Aone mumbled. All of the tension in his mother’s shoulders melted away, and her twitchy movements finally stopped, too, when she pulled her son into a fierce hug.

She was not a large woman; he got that from his father, to be sure, and Aone-san came halfway up his chest. But she wrapped her arms tight around him, with just as much strength as he’d ever had. After a moment, during which Aone glanced sideways at _Kenji_ for some weird reason, he hugged his mother back.

Kenji turned from them to study the far wall. He felt like he was intruding, but he didn’t want to break the moment by retreating, either. He’d tough this one out. Worse things had happened today than a little secondhand embarrassment.

But there was a yank on his shirt and then Aone-san was wrapping _him_ up in a hug, separate from her son. Kenji froze, rigid, shoulders nearly touching his ears, and he gave Aone a wild, pleading look over his mother’s head. _What the hell—why is she hugging ME?_ Why did it all have to be _him_?

Aone smiled, softly, the tiniest quirk to the corners of his mouth. The fucking useless traitor.

“You two played a very good match today, and I’m proud of you both. And you _will_ tell me if anyone gives you trouble, right.” It was not a question, and her voice was muffled by the fabric of Kenji’s uniform shirt. Aone-san lifted her cheek away from his chest to stare _hard_ up into his eyes. “I want you two to be happy, and if I need to kick someone’s ass for you, I will. Got it?”

Aone blinked at his mother’s use of language; Kenji burst out into gleeful laughter. Only then did he wrap his arms back around the woman. “You got it!”

“You can’t start fights,” Aone told him severely. Kenji hardly let that sway him, even if it was an unfair accusation to make. (The mental image alone was worth it.)

“It’s fine, it’s fine! We’ll behave, like usual.”

“But speaking of that!” Aone-san released him—just to keep a hold on his wrists, and yanked Kenji down to her eye level. “Are you always so antagonistic to your opponents? You’re such an upstanding, kind young man, you shouldn’t be picking fights like that on the court! I thought that tall pretty boy was going to punch you!”

“I’m as tall as he was—”

“He’s always like that,” Aone deadpanned.

“ _You’re_ the one who calls out aces and _I’m_ the one who always drags you back!”

“Neither of you should be fighting!” she scolded, going so far as to wag her finger in Kenji’s face.

Another thing that no one had ever done to him before. Kenji blinked at the sight, processing. Parental scoldings were one thing, but this seemed to come in a very different direction than what he was used to, that’s for sure.

“If I hear about any fights, I’ll put a stop to them. Regardless of whose ass I have to kick,” Aone-san finished with a sharpness to rival her son’s.

“Yes,” both boys meekly replied.

Somehow, Kenji was happy with this.

“Alright, now go get Hitomi from her room and get washed up for dinner.” They made to slink off, but before they could head upstairs, she popped her head out of the kitchen and called, “Oh, and that young man with the dyed hair! Please pass along a message and tell him _not_ to teach Hitomi any other language, or else I’ll come for him, too!”

Aone-san kicking Kamasaki’s ass would be every one of Kenji’s nonsexual fantasies all rolled up into one overwhelmingly beautiful ball. He had to take a moment at the foot of the stairs to compose himself, lest Hitomi end up seeing some kind of manic expression she probably shouldn’t ever see on his face. Even Aone was looking at him a little strangely.

“I’ll pass that along!” Kenji called back.

…Except that meant that he had to go approach Kamasaki.

Kenji pushed the thought back, for _later_ , and let himself get happily distracted by the family dinner.  


	3. pride (kenji should probably keep an eye on that) before the fall (he's going to kill koganegawa)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The one where Mai helped the team and Kenji played captain a little harder.

Mai wasn’t exactly _wrong_ when she explained to Hitomi that she saw Aone as kind of a brother figure. Dateko was pretty tightly knit, even for a sports team. (Maybe that was why those damned third years _wouldn’t leave_.) Everyone was nosy, too. Not that Aone had been particularly subtle, but Kenji could say with a fair degree of confidence that most of the team knew he had _something_ with that Karasuno middle blocker partway through their first set together.

The team had spent an entire sleepless weekend searching for Obara’s lost dog during the summer. Finals time was a crunch—a mass of bodies, books, and notes, squished into whoever drew the short straw’s room. They usually alternated, but more than once, someone had pulled rank. In his first year—and Kenji used the term _tough love_ sparingly because of being subjected to this—his teammates had taken turns babysitting him in an attempt to fix his admittedly atrocious sleep schedule.

So Kenji realized that _maybe_ keeping a (fake) relationship secret from the team _might_ have sent a weird message. He also realized that despite all their nosiness and pushiness and lack of personal boundaries, it was _really fucking weird_ that he didn’t have half a dozen boys piled upon him the second the relationship had come to light.

It took him a full day to figure out that no, they weren’t respectfully giving them space, they were _scared_ to broach the subject.

“God,” he muttered, and already hated himself for what he was about to do. No one had left the locker room yet, and the coach hadn’t swung by to yell at them to get their asses in gear yet. It was now or never. Mai would have to be dealt with separately. “Alright, let’s get all the questions out of the way. _Now_.”

“…Questions?” Onagawa asked warily.

“With what Hitomi-chan said. We only have two days before the next practice match, and I’d like to get over as many hurdles as possible prior to then.” Not to mention a scant few weeks before prelims for Spring High.

“I have a question!” Koganegawa immediately volunteered, arm in the air like he was in class.

Kenji sighed, and nodded at him. Figured he’d be first. He braced himself for whatever stupidity was about to occur.

“Why didn’t you two tell us?”

That stung more than he’d expected. Aone stared _hard_ at the back of his head, and Kenji bought himself precious time by stripping off his shirt. “We-ell,” he drawled, “the fact of the matter is that it was kind of new. And, considering this is a group of perpetually sweaty, disgusting, hormonal, teenaged boys, maybe I didn’t want to talk about feelings or something. We usually don’t.”

“Were you scared we’d judge you or something?”

“There’s a _lot_ of things I’d care about you guys judging before my sexual orientation.”

“Like your leadership of the team?”

“I’m going to shove my sweaty sock down your throat after practice,” Kenji growled, giving Koganegawa a particularly baleful look. At least the kid balked. “My leadership is _fine_ —”

“Even if it gets you defensive and you perpetually want to go cry in Moniwa-senpai’s lap,” Obara deadpanned, and Kenji threw one of his sneakers at him. It hit his shoulder with a satisfying _thwack_. “See! Defensive! That’s worse than any kind of illicit relationship.”

“It’s not _illicit_ ,” Kenji snapped. “It’s just—”

“Sorry we’re late!”

And, of course, the door burst open to reveal three harried third years, two of them already partway undressed. Kamasaki didn’t make eye contact as he slipped by first, yanking his tie off and unbuttoning the rest of his shirt. Sasaya and Moniwa at least raised hands in greeting before reclaiming their old lockers.

“You have cram school,” Kenji said in a low voice, narrowed eyes on the old captain.

“Ah, well, what do you know, it got canceled today,” Moniwa replied with an all too nervous smile. Sasaya snickered into his fist at his expense. “Fine, fine, I’m skipping, but it was important for me to be here today!”

Kenji felt his hackles rise against his will. “I was handling it.” But like hell he wanted to have a talk about _feelings_ with those three there again. Aone ducked his head to try to meet Kamasaki’s eye, but Kamasaki nearly opened the locker door in his face in an effort to avoid him. Yeah, like he wanted to deal with _that_ all practice.

“Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth,” Sasaya advised.

“We wanted to make sure everything was okay,” Moniwa added.

“It’s okay, they haven’t started christening the locker room benches or anything in the day since we’ve last seen you,” Onagawa said flatly. It was rare Kenji was genuinely caught by something someone else said, but damn if his face didn’t feel hot.

“Th-That’s not what I—!”

“You lost a practice match,” Kamasaki said brusquely. His voice seemed to echo in the small room, and everyone fell silent, even the spluttering Moniwa.

Kenji took a deep, deep breath in an effort to calm himself. He wasn’t sure he was successful, but his voice was even when he replied, “It was against Aoba Johsai. There’s not much embarrassment in losing to them.”

“Even for practice, you can’t just accept loss! You’re supposed to be saying ‘next time, we’ll beat them for sure!’”

“Next time, we’ll beat them for sure,” Kenji replied, perfectly flat.

“What Kamasaki means,” Moniwa quickly broke in, “is that we got to see you guys in action! So we have a little better idea of how you play, and where the holes are that need patching.”

Kenji already knew where the holes were that needed patching. It seemed as if there were more holes than iron wall, actually. He didn’t trust that that wasn’t a cover for more talk about _feelings_ , either. He wanted more Moniwa Advice, yeah, but not at the cost of his own pride.

“Fine then,” he said, probably more coldly than his team deserved, “you can take Kogane all practice. Do try and shape him into something halfway worthwhile.”

“Practice receives with Sakunami too,” Aone added to everyone’s surprise. Moniwa, stunned, nodded.

They finished changing just as Oiwake barged in, like he normally did. “I want to see warm-ups started in five minutes, otherwise you’re starting in on penalty laps around the gym.” At least some things never changed. Kenji sighed and nodded, and several members of the team hastened outside on the coach’s heels.

Kenji was aware of Aone lingering in his peripherals, despite Oiwake’s threat. Weird. He wasn’t making his _I need to talk to you_ face, or even his _hurry up_ one. It wasn’t like they were the last ones in there, either.

Obara slunk past them with a guilty look back over his shoulder. Kenji caught that, sighed, and turned to look at what was making his team so antsy.

Kamasaki was seated at the far end of the bench, staring daggers into Kenji’s back. Aone had already placed himself between them, and when he saw that Kenji had noticed, his expression became stormy.

They were the last three in there, now.

“Go get warmed up. I’ll be right out,” Kenji said and gave him a none-too-gentle shove in the direction of the door. Aone let himself be moved, but he didn’t look happy about it. “I promise no one will come out with a black eye.” (That had only happened _one time_ , and now the entire team had taken it as a challenge never to let them be alone with each other. Aone took it the most seriously.)

“Go on, Aone. I just want to talk to him,” Kamasaki added with a smile. A rather convincing one at that.

Aone left them, Kenji folded his arms, and the smile dropped away.

“About yesterday…” Kamasaki started, horrifically awkwardly, then trailed off into nothing.

Kenji’s lip curled. His awkwardness was only _slightly_ endearing—mostly aggravating, right now. He wasn’t in the proper mood to appreciate anything but Kamasaki’s usual bluntness. “Aone-san told me to tell you she’d kick your ass if you taught Hitomi-chan any more curses.”

“You’re lying,” Kamasaki snapped back on reflex.

“I swear on this pretty hair clip. She would _kick. Your. Ass._ ”

Kamasaki gave him a long, thoughtful glare. Kenji returned it effortlessly. He’d had a lot of practice, after all. But slowly, miraculously, Kamasaki’s shoulders relaxed, his mouth quirked up into half a grin, and his eyes softened around the edges.

Most of his earlier aggravation traitorously departed at the sight. Kenji dug his fingers into his biceps to try to maintain his angry facade. Or, at the very least, to ground himself.

“About yesterday,” Kamasaki started again. Kenji waited him out. “Are you ‘n Aone doing alright?”

“We’re fine.”

“You know the team is good, and coach would never start shit like that, and Seijoh has some good guys on it. But that seemed like a kinda messy way to go about… stuff.” Kamasaki rubbed at the back of his head, upsetting his already ruffled hair; Kenji could see his roots starting to come in noticeably. “And Moniwa’s two seconds from a breakdown about bullying an’ stuff.”

“And stuff,” Kenji echoed.

“Like, are you treating him right? We all thought Aone liked that Karasuno kid, so did something happen?”

“What about how _he’s_ treating _me_ , huh?”

“Just don’t be surprised if Moniwa corners you after practice to fret over you,” Kamasaki finished without meeting his eye. “He’s worried, like usual, about you guys. He beats himself up sometimes for not coming back to practice as much as me or Sasaya, y’know.”

“Traditionally, _any_ retired members don’t come back at all.”

“Can’t you accept the fact that we’re kinda worried?”

Kenji very graciously doesn’t point out the line crossed from ‘Moniwa’ to ‘we’.

“I kinda thought we were friends—”

Kenji snorted before he could help himself.

“—okay, _good teammates_ —”

He snorted again, this time to make a point. And maybe to be a little bit of an asshole.

“—alright, you fuckin’ hate me but I’m still your senpai and this is still my team, even if it’s _your_ team now, and I’m gonna look out for ya— _the team_ for as long as you’ll let me.” He ended with a growl, just shy of a snarl, having worked himself up into his usual surly self as he went on. Kenji half-wished that voice hadn’t sent shivers up his spine.

Why was he so easy? And why did Kenji make it _so difficult_?

“I don’t hate you,” Kenji muttered. Even he wasn’t that cruel.

“You do a good job of pretending.”

“Do you have anything else to say to me, aside from telling me I _clearly_ need the help?”

Kamasaki let out a harassed noise, not quite a sigh and not yet another growl. “Yeah, you fuckin’ do, but did you take _nothing_ else from all that? That’s what I get for baring my heart or whatever, I guess…”

 _Baring your heart would involve stepping up a bit more,_ Kenji dryly thought. He was an optimist, but not a blind one, and he’d be happy with teasing if this would remain safe in their hazy (fucking _infuriating_ ) zone of plausible deniability. “I don’t think Aone or I would have to deal with much on the bullying front. Neither of us are exactly the wilting, shy type. Thanks for your concern. If you want to help past that, finish lacing your shoes and get out on the court.”

Kenji hadn’t left fast enough to avoid the sound of Kamasaki’s frustrated, muffled shout into his hands. For once, he didn’t feel victorious.

 

—

 

Their next practice match was against some small school called Tokonami. Kenji vaguely recalled playing against them his first year, but nothing stood out to him about their style or players. It was a fairly easy win, their captain was too soft-spoken to do much more than quail under Aone’s gaze, and it became a massive confidence boost to Koganegawa.

And _Mai_ , of all people.

“You did it!” she cheered, bounding up to them after the match, beating the coach over. She made a little movement toward Obara, like she was going in for a _hug_ , and Kenji stared at her in mild horror as instead she took Obara’s hands in hers. Then, she held both of his in one of hers, and grabbed at Fukiage’s hands, despite how he’d been just wiping sweat off onto his shorts.

Both boys looked _incredibly_ embarrassed by the touching.

Kenji tried to catch Aone’s eye, because _what the hell_ , but Aone looked down at their manager and teammates with a faintly lost expression, too. Helpful.

“That was such a good match,” Mai gushed, still utterly beaming.

“Who are you and what have you done with our manager,” Kenji demanded.

“That _was_ a good match. Things clicked a bit better today,” Oiwake said, mercifully cutting across Mai’s dark expression. She was still _smiling_ , too, god, even with the furrowed brows. Kenji didn’t fear many people, but Mai was probably on that short list. “Sakunami, especially. You and Koganegawa seem to be smoothing out your rough edges. Good job.”

Their little libero preened—rightfully—under the praise, but he quailed again a moment later when Mai threw an arm around his shoulders. “Good job carrying this team, Kousuke-kun! Knew we could count on you!”

Kenji was beginning to seriously question if Mai had been swapped out with an alien. Perhaps something was wearing her skin. Maybe she was buttering them up for something, maybe someone had died. Maybe he was such a bad captain they’d already managed to get disqualified from the next tournament.

“I was good this match, too!” Koganegawa exclaimed, defensive and fierce, and bent down next to Mai like he was wanting to sponge off the praise.

She did one better, and patted his head. Kind of like a dog. And, like a dog, Kenji could swear he saw his tail wag.

And that broke the spell; the boys all clamored around her, ignoring their coach for once, demanding praise like a bunch of needy toddlers. Kenji quickly freed himself from the throng and popped out next to Oiwake. The man didn’t seem _nearly_ as confused as he should be, and Kenji shot him a narrow-eyed, suspicious look.

“A little praise can go a long way,” he said like he was departing some great wisdom.

“Why do you think we shout ourselves hoarse after every point?” Kenji mutinously muttered. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to be heard or not.

“Few things can rev a team’s engine like a kind word without ulterior motive,” Oiwake clarified.

 _Oh_ , Kenji thought, both irritated and morose. “Yes, sir,” he mumbled. So he didn’t fawn over the team—like Moniwa sometimes had. So sue him. He’d try a little harder from now on.

 

—

 

“No,” Kenji said in quiet, bone-deep horror. “No, we have a practice match against Johzenji _tomorrow_.”

“I’m fine!” Koganegawa said. Kenji assumed that’s what he said. He sounded so stuffed up it kind of came out as a nasal whine. He was upright, which Kenji gave him due credit for, since he could also see him shivering from even where he stood. Koganegawa’s hair wasn’t even spiked back. Kenji usually had to dump a bucket of water over him to accomplish that.

“You are going home _right now_.”

Koganegawa opened his mouth to argue, but Aone popped up at Kenji’s shoulder, using his best staredown. Sometimes, Kenji really loved the guy. Their setter wilted with a sad sound, which quickly turned into a sniffle, which just as quickly turned into him hiding his snotty face in his scarf. “Home,” Aone added in an impressive growl. Sometimes these troublesome kids needed a firm hand, after all.

But it wasn’t their hand that did it; Sakunami tugged on the clean end of his dangling scarf, and said, “You really should try to get rid of this soon.”

“We need you in top condition,” Kenji added. Then, after a pause in which he braced himself, he said, “Because you’re our setter, and we rely on you a lot. You’re a very important part of the team.”

To his chagrin, it didn’t have the desired effect. Koganegawa hid further in his scarf. “You’re just saying that.”

“I’m saying it because I’m trying to get it through your thick skull! We _need_ you, at your absolute best, and playing while sick isn’t the way to do it.” _This_ is why he didn’t try complimenting others. He sucked at it. People always assumed he was sarcastic, and why mince words if they weren’t going to be understood properly?

Koganegawa looked properly cowed, which was the only relief in this situation. Kenji still felt like an asshole. He refused to watch Koganegawa slink off and instead started practice with a bark.

 _Obara is going to have to play setter_ , Kenji thought, already trying to do the mental math. They had a talented bench, but they’d also been blessed by a lack of injuries and illnesses so far. And Koganegawa was technically their only trained (as much as he was) setter. _Kikuchi can fill in as another blocker. We’ll have to play defensively tomorrow…_ Defensively against the party school. God. Johzenji was going to eat them alive.

But it was just a practice match. Kenji didn’t care. He _did_ care about Koganegawa’s health, and the fact that the idiot would try to come to practice anyway.

“You’re over-thinking this,” Mai slyly told him from her spot beside him on the bench. “I can see the steam coming out from between your ears.”

“If he got anyone else sick—god fucking forbid _Sakunami_ —I’m going to flay him,” Kenji deadpanned.

“High school boys are resilient. He’ll bounce back, and maybe next time he won’t try to come to practice. Good job laying down the law out there, captain.”

“You don’t have to shove your praise kink on me too.”

“ _Stop_ being lewd,” Mai said and smacked him in the arm. He probably deserved it, but at least it made him smile, too. “We’re just trying to boost morale. That includes you.”

“I’ve never heard of such a thing. I don’t have a morale. Maybe that’s another one of your dirty things pushed onto me.”

“I’m going over your head and making you play the next set. You’re not even gathering information or whatever you claim to be doing during our gossip sessions,” Mai informed him. Kenji gave up the battle after that; he knew full well she’d go to the coach for this.

(Though he had taken note of how Obara tended to default to tossing left more than a practiced setter should, and Aone seemed distracted, and Fukiage kept flexing his left hand like it bothered him. Kenji was many things, but he was not unobservant.)

After practice ended and Mai stopped giving him the stink eye, the universe decided to deposit a similarly miffed Aone Takanobu in front of him.

“Sorry, dearest, I can’t come over today,” Kenji said and patted Aone’s cheek. Onagawa snorted from somewhere behind them.

Aone looked half disconcerted, half honestly confused. For a guy so big, he wore confusion like a puppy. It beat the glare from earlier.

“Alright, before everyone heads home, pay up,” Kenji called, half-turning from his supposed boyfriend. Aone made a soft sound a little too much like a growl for him to be entirely comfortable with their proximity, so he took a step back under the pretense of stripping off his sweaty jersey.

“Did we lose some kind of bet we were unaware of?” Obara asked flatly.

“No, it’s just that we’re the new senpai, and that means we have _duties_.”

Fukiage cocked his head, but the other second years knew what was up. Even Sakunami looked weirdly knowledgeable. “Wait, wait, _you_ are going to go babysit him?” Obara asked, now suspicious. Rudely suspicious.

“I’m the captain, aren’t I?” And maybe he needed to have a talk to Koganegawa, too. Maybe. “Everyone, pay up, I’m buying the kid soup and stuff. What else do you feed sick people?”

“I think he had a fever, you could get him some medication?” Sakunami volunteered.

“You sweat those out, right? Get him a blanket!”

“I’m not going to _buy him a blanket_ —”

“Go tuck him in, make him soup, make sure we get our setter back asap.” Obara grabbed his wallet, took out a couple bills—way too much—and shoved them at Kenji with a wry grin. “ _Vice_ captain’s orders. Everyone else, keep in mind you’ll have your senpai on your asses if you get into any kind of trouble, so make sure you stay healthy!”

It was so incredibly rare that Obara swung his weight around, much less addressed his position, that Kenji couldn’t help but pretend to wipe away a tear. Worth it for the scrunched-up face he received in return.

“Hey, Aone, come grab food with us at Wuck since we stole your boy for the evening! We can ask Mai-chan, too!” Obara called, just to be a shit, and Kenji finished changing with maybe a little too much force. At least he didn’t rip anything.

Kenji left before the others, uniform jacket stuffed in his bag, tie dangling around his neck. Usually he wasn’t so sloppy. Maybe Kamasaki was rubbing off on him, even if he hadn’t seen the guy in… too long. He was definitely more used to doing this with the third years—or being subjected to it by them instead. In fact, this was the first time he was checking on a teammate alone.

 _This is weird, isn’t it. Isn’t it?_ he thought, suddenly, palms sweaty against his bag. _Do other teams smother their teammates like this? Is he going to be weirded out because I chewed him out, or because he knows I like guys?_ No, he would’ve caught onto teammates acting weird about the boyfriend thing earlier. Koganegawa certainly wasn’t the type to be _that_ good of an actor.

He had to use his phone for directions, making sure he didn’t get turned around in the surprisingly upscale neighborhood, and found Koganegawa’s apartment building with little other difficulty. He’d stopped at a conbini for a cheap soup mix—he didn’t know what Koganegawa _liked_ , actually, outside of too much fast food—and the only cold medicine they had, and the plastic bag felt weirdly like a noose he should put on.

This was definitely weird.

Why hadn’t he thought it was weird when it was his upperclassmen bothering him?

 _I guess I did at first_ , he thought sourly and hit the button for the elevator. Kenji distinctly remembered growling and snapping at Kamasaki and Sasaya for how many times they barged in on him. But he’d also stopped that pretty quick, too. Maybe he’d been touched. Maybe Koganegawa wouldn’t think this was weird.

In the end, he didn’t have enough courage to knock on the door with the _Koganegawa_ nameplate.

He instead texted him, tapping his foot and shuffling nervously. He saw Koganegawa start to type, three times, but the shuffling sound from inside came before any response did. The door opened to reveal his teammate, in pink slippers, a horrifyingly thick blanket, and hair lank around his ears.

Koganegawa blinked down at him. “…Senpai?” he finally decided on.

Kenji _sincerely_ hoped his face wasn’t as red as it felt. He thrust the bag out. “I brought you—”

“Kanji, who is that at the door!” came a woman’s voice, and she left absolutely no time to answer before ducking down the hallway to the door. Koganegawa’s mother was a small woman—probably smaller even than Aone-san, which was saying something, and how the hell did these small ladies keep spawning giants—but bright-eyed and _gasping_ at Kenji’s presence.

He didn’t have the presence of mind to come up with anything else than an awkward, “H-Hello.”

“Hello!” she exclaimed, starry-eyed. Koganegawa suddenly seemed nervous. She looked down at the plastic bag, then back up to Kenji’s face. “Are you one of Kanji’s classmates?”

“Teammate,” Kenji replied, bemused. “I’m Futakuchi Kenji, Kogane—gawa-san. I’m ca—”

“You’re Kanji’s captain!” she gasped.

“He was just here to drop off some stuff!” Koganegawa yelped, half-panicked, and grabbed Kenji’s arm. “We’re going up to my room, bye!”

And so Kenji was dragged into his teammate’s bedroom, because this wasn’t weird enough. Although, honestly, he let it happen. There was muffled rock music coming from the next room over. Koganegawa’s room was shockingly neat. This was definitely a really bizarre dream he had yet to wake up from.

“…Sorry,” Koganegawa muttered after a long beat.

“How are you feeling?” Kenji asked instead of addressing the awkwardness. He _really_ didn’t want to deal with that. “I brought you some stuff—soup and medicine, I guess, just something to give you a little kick—but it looks like you already had the blanket covered.”

And, judging from the brief sniff he’d gotten passing the hallway to the bedroom, his mother was probably already cooking him all kinds of sick foods. Far better than some cheap conbini crap. Kenji kind of forgot, even with his frequent visits to Aone’s place, that most of his teammates _would_ have family members who could immediately take care of them when they were sick.

Koganegawa took the plastic bag with a curious little chirp. “You, uh… for me?”

“Well, yeah. I didn’t really mean to snap at you at practice, so sorry for that. But the team’s worried. Idiots aren’t supposed to catch colds, y’know?” Kenji avoided eye contact, and while he tried to keep his voice soft so Koganegawa would know he was joking, he didn’t want to seem _too_ gentle, either.

But when he risked a glance over, he saw Koganegawa staring down at the bag with suspiciously shiny eyes.

“Wha—are you _crying_?!” Shit, that _definitely_ came out too loud. He sounded panicked. (He felt a little panicked, maybe.) “Sorry your mom’s home to take care of you, I guess—th-the team just likes to take care of our own, y’know, and we wanted to make sure you’d bounce back—”

“Th-Thank you s-senpai!” And then, Kenji had the supreme bad luck to have a blubbering, snotty, stumbling Koganegawa embrace him. Tightly. Kenji could already feel what he hoped were tears soaking through the fabric on his shoulder.

He took a step back to stabilize them, one hand coming up to Koganegawa’s bicep and the other on his waist, and otherwise _froze_.

What the hell was he supposed to do with a crying sick kid?

Well, okay, crying Koganegawa wasn’t _strictly_ new. Hugging was new. Hugging and crying at the same time was new. Doing that in his own bedroom was new. Koganegawa sniffed wetly against his neck, then leaned a little more heavily against Kenji.

Before Kenji could ask, Koganegawa thickly mumbled, “Woah, dizzy.”

“Then don’t go throwing yourself around while sick!” Kenji snapped. He took as much weight as Koganegawa put on him, even if he was stupidly heavy—at least he had practice dragging Aone around—and after much shifting and grunting and _effort_ , Kenji managed to heave him down into a sitting position onto his bed.

Koganegawa’s face was red and blotchy, and still had wetness smeared around his eyes, but his gaze looked a little hazy. Kenji reached down to feel his forehead, but Koganegawa flopped back onto his bed.

“Stupid,” Kenji said without any heat. He’d barely managed to avoid hitting his head on the wall. Koganegawa cooperated about as well as a sack of potatoes, but he managed to get him somewhat placed normally, and while he couldn’t drag up all the blankets from beneath him, he could at least cover him in the fluffy one from before.

And, before he could talk himself out of it, he then felt how hot his forehead was.

“Have you taken anything yet? You’re burning up,” Kenji said with a cluck of his tongue.

“Mmmno.”

“And why not?”

“Had to wait for food.”

“When _aren’t_ you eating?” Kenji grabbed the dropped bag and grabbed the little box of cold medicine, but damn, it _did_ recommend to take with food. He didn’t think he ever had, on the rare cases he got sick. It figured that the kid was such a stickler for rules, even when he accidentally broke half of them in practice. “Fine, I’ll go talk to your mom and get her to shove something down your throat first.”

Koganegawa blinked blearily up at him, blanket still tucked up to his nose. “Why’re you bein’ nice to me still?”

“Because you’re my teammate, and you’re sick. I want you to get better.”

At least he seemed happy with that answer. Kenji shuffled out into the hallway, glancing around uneasily, then down toward the way he came. Photos lined the main hallway, and he had to say, he liked Koganegawa better with blond hair. Maybe he was just partial to blond, though.

“Ah, Futakuchi-kun!”

Kenji jumped like a startled cat at the sound of the woman’s voice, and turned with a creaky smile to face Koganegawa-san. “Uh, Koganegawa is kind of down for the night, I think. Time to dose him up with soup and medicine?”

“You’re so kind to have stopped by! You didn’t need to, thank you.” With a cheery smile, she took the bag from him, and beckoned him over into the kitchen. The rest of the apartment seemed strangely sparse, but the kitchen was certainly homey, in a cutesy sense—Kenji got the sense that this was the room she cared most about. “Here, sit for a bit! Can I get you some tea?”

Kenji was pushed down into a chair and he nodded dumbly, a little afraid to do much else.

“Kanji talks about you a lot, you know,” Koganegawa-san said secretively, complete with a sly glance in the direction of her son’s bedroom. “He’s very happy on that team, and he’s proud of everyone, but you would not _believe_ how he gushes about his new captain. He’s so proud to be on that team.”

Kenji ducked his head, under the guise of embarrassment, but honestly, he was pretty damn pleased. So Koganegawa talked about the team, huh? And _Kenji_ , too? This served the glorious dual purpose of being dirt he can use to corral the setter in the future, as well as a pretty nice ego boost for Kenji himself. …To unexpected levels, actually.

He knew Koganegawa—all of their first years—liked the team, liked their upperclassmen. (Even the third years.) But with how hard he was on Koganegawa sometimes, he wondered.

Kenji thanked her for the tea and the conversation, and Koganegawa-san thanked him for taking care of her son. Both of them meant more than the surface level, and Kenji was okay with that. She was a nice woman.

It was chilly on the walk home, but it was a nice counterpoint to how hot the day had been, so Kenji hurried and sent a couple texts to the team. One to Koganegawa, telling him not to come to morning practice tomorrow, no matter how he was feeling. One to Obara that his duty was done. And one to Aone, apologizing and telling him they’d talk tomorrow.

His thumb hovered, momentarily, over Kamasaki’s number in his phone. He wasn’t even sure what he’d need to say to him. Like hell he’d thank him for taking care of him his first year, or compliment him on how well the third years held together their unruly lot.

He settled on an emoji with its tongue stuck out.

 

—

 

Kenji woke a little later than usual, feeling unusually tired on top of that. Perfect.

Today was the day of the practice match they were hosting with Johzenji after school, but he didn’t feel all that excited for it. He’d heard rumors about the school after their third years were gone for good; they’d always been troublesome, underclassmen chaotic on the court and upperclassmen stalwart and steady. …Actually, that sounded a little familiar, come to think.

Not that Kenji counted Dateko as _chaotic_. They just had a little fun sometimes. _He_ just had a little fun sometimes.

 _I really was ungrateful, huh_ , he miserably thought as he trudged to morning practice. If Koganegawa was there, he’d beat his ass, sick or not.

It’d be his first time meeting another second year captain since he became captain. He hoped the Johzenji brat wouldn’t make it weird. Well, granted, Terushima _always_ made it weird, because he never stopped hitting on Mai or laughingly picking fights with Aone. But Kenji didn’t want a further headache.

Morning practice was dragging. His body felt sluggish, like he still hadn’t woken up properly, but if anyone else noticed, they had the kindness not to say anything to his face. Kenji was more focused on their substitute setter, anyway. Obara was a good player, but he wasn’t a setter.

Classes weren’t much better, but at least he got to sit and remain stationary. He didn’t often sleep through class—he was actually a pretty good student, not that people expected it of him—but Kenji couldn’t help but nod off, a few times. At least it was English. He didn’t need much help with that.

Alright, and it was also History, and then Physics. Sue him, he was tired. He’d done his one good deed for the universe, so it had to let him have this one.

(The universe seemed inclined to agree, as he wasn’t caught by any teachers.)

Practice was only warm-ups before the match was to start. Johzenji got there even earlier than anticipated, and two of their spikers spent most of the warm-up time making eyes at Mai. Their poor managers definitely seemed to have their hands full babysitting them, if the occasional shout Kenji heard from across the gym was any indication.

Kenji didn’t particularly have patience for them today. He also didn’t have patience for the trio of third-years who eagerly popped in.

Kenji ignored both, even despite the way Kamasaki eyed him, and concentrated on not feeling so sluggish. …It wasn’t particularly successful, but dumping some of his water bottle down the back of his shirt seemed to help wake him up a bit. _Just what I need, an off day_ , he sourly thought. Their third year audience’s eyes seemed to weigh him down further. _Like I need them, either…_

So what if Moniwa and Kamasaki and Sasaya saw him mess up a practice match? So what if they were going to have to watch their stunted team, sans one setter, and with a wobbly captain? Kenji would survive. Dateko would survive.

_Wait, wobbly?_

Kenji barely caught himself before he fell, but he still ended up leaning against Aone’s shoulder. Not that the giant seemed to notice his weight. Aone blinked down at him. Kenji already wanted to defend himself, but Aone reached out to place his hand against his forehead before he could. It was an easy target; he’d already put his hair back with Hitomi’s clip.

He realized it about the same time that Aone did.

“Don’t,” Kenji warned. His voice was still strong, at least. “I’ll take it easy for the match, but we can’t—”

“You’re sick,” Aone said severely. _Too loudly_. Mai’s head snapped around so fast it was like she was auditioning for the next big horror movie.

“Captain’s _what_?”

“Oh god.”

“Are you feeling—”

“Nope, all good here!” Kenji chirped with a wide, toothy grin. Normally, he wouldn’t even argue this—any player’s health was important, even the stubborn players, and he _was_ stubborn but he wasn’t _stupid_ —but they had put him on the defensive. It was in his nature to argue back. His pride wouldn’t allow any take-backs at this point, either.

This was going to get ugly, and fast, judging on the way Mai’s eyes narrowed. “If Coach doesn’t, I’m going to beat your ass if you’re trying to play while sick. You _saw_ how bad Kanji-kun was yesterday. You’re going to get even worse.”

“I’m fine! I just stayed up too late, like usual.”

She went to feel his forehead, and he reeled back away from her, a touch too ungainly to pretend to be anything but dizzied by the movement.

Kenji opened his mouth to retort—again—but instead the scene around him dipped. A little too much for a single movement.

He didn’t realize he’d collapsed until Mai was back in his face about it. Kenji could feel Aone’s arms beneath his, probably saving him from a nasty, incredibly embarrassing fall. He heard squawks from alarmed teammates, mumbled out thanks to Aone, and resigned himself to whatever fresh hell this would turn into.

Kenji was physically hauled to the bench, sat down with a cool washcloth, and felt and prodded so many times he lost count. He wasn’t coughing or sneezing, and his nose wasn’t stuffy yet. But he couldn’t deny a fever when it felt like everyone on the planet had tested him. Oiwake’s gaze felt like a lead arrow drilling into the back of his head.

“The school nurse has already left for the day…”

“We’re going to need Watanabe to fill in as a spiker.”

“Shouldn’t it be Fujihara? He has more practice working with Kikuchi and Fukiage.”

“We’re going to need to send Futakuchi home.”

“I can do it!”

Kenji raised his head at the exclamation; he caught the tail end of several people giving Aone wary looks, as if they were preparing to talk him down from escorting his boyfriend home. Maybe they were worried that Aone was worried. Why would Aone be worried, though? It was just a cold, and they weren’t _really_ dating, and the absolute _last thing on the planet_ they needed was for Aone to get sick, too.

But thoughts of Aone left his head, replaced with growing dread, as Moniwa jogged over.

“I’m fine!” Kenji said and shot to his feet. His head swam only a little. Mai placed a hand against his back to steady him, but he was staying upright, damn it. “Let, uh, Watanabe-kun sub in for me, he can deal with those Johzenji ruffians better. A-And have Aone swap sides with Obara.”

“There’s our bossy captain, I was almost worried when you went quiet for a moment,” Mai remarked, and Kenji would have shot her a glare if he dared twist his head around.

“We need our cheerleaders if I’m not there to drag them along with me,” Kenji said flatly.

“That’s why I’m leaving Kamasaki and Sasaya. Unless you’d rather go home with one of them?” Moniwa asked with a stupidly bright smile. Doubly stupidly bright considering he _knew_ what he was saying. No one should look that innocent when being such an ass to a sick kid.

But Kenji would rather eat both his shoes than go home with Kamasaki. Sasaya might not be that bad.

“Thank you, Kaname-kun,” Oiwake said, and that was that.

Kenji trudged back off the court, ignoring the way he could hear Johzenji players hooting after him, though they were quickly silenced by what Kenji could only assume was a Full Aone Glare. Few other things worked so quickly on opposing players.

Moniwa, bless his heart, had the grace to wait until they were alone to ask, “How are you feeling?”

“I didn’t realize I was sick, really,” Kenji muttered in halfhearted defense. “I thought I was just tired.”

“Just make sure it doesn’t happen again, okay?”

“Right, I won’t set any worse example than I have already.”

Moniwa snorted out a little laugh. “ _You’re_ the one who has to corral them. You reap what you sow.”

Somehow, that made him feel better. Kenji hid his own tiny smile as he finished changing. His throat felt dry and his head was still a little fuzzy, but honestly, he _was_ probably fine to head home on his own. Moniwa came back for a practice match, not to babysit him.

“Um, senpai—”

“Your mother probably left for her shift already, huh?” Moniwa interrupted, but not unkindly. (Kenji had seen him try to be mean before. He’d collapsed from laughter.) Kenji sighed and nodded. “Is your father home?”

“No, just me, as usual.” The third years knew full well what his home life was like, so he didn’t bother hiding it. “I think he’s in California right now. For another two or three weeks.” Kenji had long since stopped counting down the days until his father returned. It seemed like the man was away more than he was home.

Moniwa clucked his tongue, not so much in pity, but vague irritation on Kenji’s behalf. His usual mode of dealing with this. “Will you be alright?”

“My mom’s a doctor. I won’t die before I’m a hundred, at least,” Kenji scoffed. Even if she got home at four or five in the morning, she’d at least check on him, and if he was still feverish, he’d catch hell in the form of aggressive medicine in the morning. “Will you be headed back to the match after this?” Kenji added, guiltily.

“Nah, I should probably head to cram school. Dateko can handle Johzenji again without us.”

“It’s rare they’re missing _both_ their captains.”

“Aww, how sweet of you, admitting I was captain,” Moniwa cooed.

“Sarcasm doesn’t fit you, senpai,” Kenji deadpanned. Moniwa laughed, light and cute and completely at odds with the way he slapped Kenji’s back. He struggled to hold in a wheeze. “Th-Thanks. My lungs appreciated that. Maybe you’re trying to get your old role back by murdering me…”

“If you’re still sassing me, you’ll be fine. I’m glad you didn’t try to fight to stay in the match.”

“What good would that do?”

“See, you’ve grown as a person! Don’t you remember the way you and Aone would fight when either one of you were sick last year? It was like trying to approach feral dogs, I swear.”

“I don’t think Kamasaki’s brand of _help_ was really that great…”

“He got you to listen, didn’t he?” Moniwa asked with a sly grin that Kenji didn’t like. “And then you got Aone to listen. It was the perfect waterfall of teammates listening to me.”

“Until me and Kamasaki started squabbling again and then Aone got in the middle of it.” Come to think of it, all three of them usually ended up sick at the same time. At least they had managed to break that streak now, even if it meant their setter and captain were MIA. Kenji rubbed at the bridge of his nose. “God, if anyone else comes down with anything…”

“You’ll all be fine. Better now than tournament season.”

The train station wasn’t too busy at that time of day, missing the school rush hour, but Moniwa used a little more force than necessary to maneuver Kenji down into a free seat. He sat down on his other side and glared at other passengers like he was a housewife protecting her tiny child.

“Do you want me to lean on you, too? Hold your hand so we don’t get separated?” Kenji asked.

“If you’re tired, you can—”

“I’d crush you.” Moniwa wasn’t _short_ , but he was short for Dateko. It’d been too long since he’d gotten to rub that in.

Moniwa didn’t even seem to notice, to his disappointment. He stared, hard, up at Kenji. Unnerving. Slowly, he reached up, then unclipped his bangs. “Aone’s little sister gave this to you, right?” he asked.

Kenji very quickly looked away. “Yep. She wouldn’t let me have the other one, but she said the green one was better for me. Not quite school colors, but not bad, I guess. Looks good with my hair.”

“About what she said…”

“Kamasaki already gave me this talk. You’re all worried, Aone and I are treating each other right, we won’t get bullied or whatever. It’s _fine_ , Moniwa-senpai,” Kenji said with a sigh. Now that he was sitting again, he _was_ pretty tired, actually. He let himself close his eyes, but inclined his head toward his old captain, to show he was still part of this conversation. “Yeah, we didn’t want Hitomi-chan to exactly say it that way, but what can we do. She’s a mouthy little girl. We kinda saw it coming.”

“And Aone’s okay, too?”

“ _Yes_ , senpai.”

“And you’re both… I mean, you get along well, so I’m going to assume you’re happy, but I kind of thought…” Moniwa trailed off with a fidget Kenji could feel from the way their shoulders pressed together. He opened his mouth to once again point out no, nothing happened with Aone and the kid from Karasuno, but Moniwa beat him to the punch. “You talked to Kamasaki about this? How did he, uh, take it?”

Kenji reopened his eyes to glare at the ceiling of the train car. “Why? Is there some reason he _shouldn’t_ be happy I’m not single?”

“You don’t have to get snippy with me,” Moniwa said in that perfectly hurt way that made Kenji regret all his asshole behaviors in his entire existence and _he knew it_ , the shit. “Futakuchi, I know you’re not that stupid. The entire team knows you two—”

“It’s _nothing_.” He didn’t want to hear it from _Moniwa_ , of all people. “If Kamasaki had something to say to me, then he didn’t say it. Like usual. So why should I bother changing?”

“You can’t keep baiting him and expect him not to think there’s something there.”

“You think I’m _baiting_ him?”

“Flirting with him?” Moniwa asked sharply. Kenji flushed and closed his eyes again so he didn’t have to see him in his peripherals. “I get it. You’re moving on. That’s _fine_ , really! I’m happy for you both!”

“But?” Kenji tiredly asked.

“I wasn’t really going anywhere with that,” Moniwa said, this time with his own sigh, one that sounded infinitely more world-weary than anything Kenji could ever come up with. That was the sigh of someone who had put up with two bickering boys for the past year and a half with no payoff. “It’s none of my business. If you’re happy, then great. I’m glad.”

Kenji was an optimist, but he wasn’t a blind one. What he had with Aone might not be real, but he didn’t feel like jeopardizing it for something Kamasaki certainly didn’t want to say. Even if Moniwa thought something was there, who knew? It’s not as if Kamasaki was the type of guy to hold back or mince words. He would have said something.

Right?

Moniwa brought him back to his empty home, made him drink half a mug of tea and take some medicine, and Kenji appreciated his worrying via not joking about getting tucked in.

(Moniwa tried to tuck him in anyway, laughing the entire time. Kenji only kicked a little bit. Moniwa wasn’t half as innocent as others thought he was.)


	4. laugh (even if it's just from the fever) before breakfast (like hell kenji will give up his free food)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The one where Kenji dug his hole and too many people visited his home.

Kenji woke with snot smeared over his face and his mother leaning down over him like a horror movie monster.

Kenji closed his eyes again and wished very, _very_ hard that it was a bad dream.

“Mouth open,” his mother said and eyes still closed, he obediently opened his mouth for her to stick the thermometer in. It didn’t look like she had changed yet. Kenji was normally pretty good at sleeping through her visits. “You have a fever of almost thirty-nine degrees. Have you taken anything?”

Kenji nodded and cracked an eye open. His clock read not quite six in the morning. He’d have to be getting up soon, which was a thought that didn’t sit well with his achy, snotty body.

“You’re not going to school today,” his mother casually informed him and checked something on her phone. Her eye bags were terrifying. Her hair was still back in a messy ponytail, glasses pushed up onto her bangs, and he didn’t want to know what had stained her shirt.

“You need to sleep,” Kenji croaked.

“We both do, kid,” she grunted back. “Other symptoms?”

Kenji pointed to his throat, sniffled pathetically, then added, “Tired.”

“Did you get it from a classmate or a teammate?”

“…Teammate.” As if it was ever any other answer.

“I hope you all get it out of your systems before you kill yourselves in the next tournament, then. Stay awake a bit longer, then you can sleep again. Turn off your alarm.”

Kenji did as told, but he still managed to drift off before she returned with the medicine.

 

—

 

Kenji had been expecting a visit at some point (especially as he’d gotten up around nine, after a horrendous amount of sleep and was thus bored out of his mind, stuck in his room) but he had _not_ expected Kamasaki to show up on his door step.

“Go away,” Kenji said, stuffed up and raspy, and tried to slam the door in his face.

“The entire team seems to think you and Kogane have the plague. Can’t say you’re exactly convincin’ me otherwise,” Kamasaki said after he wedged his foot in the door. Kenji let him in, rather than start a fight and risk waking his mother. “You look horrible.”

“Thanks. I feel better already.”

Kenji turned and meant to lead him toward the kitchen, but Kamasaki grabbed his arm and tugged him back. Kenji stumbled and managed to fall against Kamasaki’s chest, which was ten times worse than anything in the history of anything.

So the universe made things _even worse_.

Kenji tilted his head back, resting on Kamasaki’s shoulder, and Kamasaki didn’t bother trying to move away or snap at him or anything except make sure Kenji was stable. He then placed his hand against Kenji’s forehead. Tenderly.

Kenji was certain he was about to expire. It would be kinder to die then and there than to face the inevitable moment when Kamasaki shoved him away again and told him to get his ass back to bed.

“You’re still warm,” Kamasaki mumbled.

 _Well yeah_ , Kenji thought, wanted to say, _of course I’d be warm if you try this kind of shoujo bullshit with me_. And damn him if it didn’t work. It felt pretty nice to be held by Kamasaki like this. Maybe this was a fever dream, trying to point out how he _could_ maybe almost do stuff like this with Kamasaki regularly if they both sucked it up and stopped dancing around—

“C’mon, don’t fall asleep standing up, jackass.”

Ah, what an end to such a fragile scenario. Kamasaki gave Kenji a shove, which had a little too much force for his sick brain to handle, but at least Kamasaki caught him again before he could faceplant against the wall.

“Shit, sorry, you’re really out of it, huh? Sorry.”

“You’ll catch it too. It’s the worst,” Kenji muttered. “I need a delicate touch until then, senpai. Try not to break me. I don’t think it’d be good for the team to lose two captains in one year.”

“I wish I could record you saying this shit,” Kamasaki said, fondly, and steered him back toward the kitchen. He waited until Kenji was parked on one of the stools by the counter before fishing out his phone. “Wait, go. Now say dumb fever stuff some more.”

Kenji pouted at the phone. He wasn’t sure if it was actually recording or not. “What’s wrong with not wanting to be abused when I’m in my time of need?”

“Nothing, I just want to record this softer side of you for pos—uh, well, for future generations. Especially if you scare the new first years next year.”

“Posterity,” Kenji supplied. “Do you want some tea or something?”

“Yeah, I want the sick guy making me stuff.”

“No, I would just direct you like a king upon his throne. You can fend for yourself. But you can do it with permission from your host.”

“Yes, your _majesty_ ,” Kamasaki snarked and even bowed. He at least stowed his phone again, but his behavior sent a weird little tingle up Kenji’s spine.

 _Well_ there’s _a kink_ , he thought in despair. _Maybe I just like him lower than my field of vision_ … He usually didn’t mind their height difference—okay, in all honesty, he _totally_ liked guys who were taller than him—but he liked Kamasaki looking _up_ at him, too. _Oh, maybe that’s it._ That came with its own slew of unwelcome thoughts, but it was better than some weird roleplay shit.

Kenji slid down until his forehead was resting against the cool countertop.

“You okay?”

“I think I might be more feverish than I thought. Go back to being mean now, please.”

“I’m not _mean_!” Kamasaki barked.

“You’ll wake my mom,” Kenji hissed.

Kamasaki made a halfway apologetic sound, and rummaged around the kitchen with uncharacteristic gentleness, quiet as a mouse. Kenji contented himself watching his back. This was a horribly domestic scenario for his sick self to handle. He wasn’t certain he could handle much more.

“Senpai, why does the team care so much?” Kenji mumbled against the countertop.

“Huh?”

“You all took care of us, and now we’re taking care of the other newbies. How far back does this chain of caring go? It’s _exhausting_.”

“You’re just tired.”

“Tired of caring.”

“First you’d have to care about something to be tired of it,” Kamasaki muttered darkly.

 _I care about you_ , Kenji thought, mumbling, and tried to dredge up a list of other things he could shove in Kamasaki’s face. What would piss him off the most?

Kamasaki turned, slowly, and just as slowly pulled his phone out again. He pointed it toward Kenji like he was some nature documentarist approaching a wild tiger. “Say that again.”

“I didn’t…” He’d said that _aloud_ , hadn’t he.

Kamasaki slowly broke into a wicked grin. Kenji desperately missed the soft tenderness from before. “You _what_ me?”

“I hate you,” Kenji meant to say, but it was absolutely swallowed up by the way he mushed his face against the countertop as a last defense. Kamasaki reached across the counter to try to pry him up, phone shoved in his face, laughing like a demonic hyena. Kenji struggled, but he was sick-weak and trying not to laugh himself, even if it was pathetic and stupid and _mortifying_. Maybe that was a defense, too.

“C’mon, I think you said something else!”

“Stop abusing the sick kid!”

“Say more fever shit! I need to show this to you later!”

“You’re going to crush me—”

“Keep it _down_!” came his mother’s shrill bark. Both boys froze in sheer terror. Kamasaki still had his forearm beneath Kenji’s neck, fingers twisted in his hair, and Kamasaki’s wrist was still in Kenji’s mouth where he’d been trying to bite him to get him to drop the phone.

Horribly enough, fear—fear of getting caught (doing _what_?), fear of their weird positioning—kept them immobile long enough for Kenji’s mother to shuffle down the hall and into the kitchen. She had a housecoat on over her pajamas, hair unbrushed and eyes rimmed in her favorite shade of sleep-deprived red.

Somehow, they both survived the incident. Kenji honestly couldn’t remember how. Fear may have blocked the memory from his mind.

But he did know that Kamasaki left soon afterward.

 

—

 

Mai was the one who visited him next, late that afternoon. She was only a marginally more welcome sight than Kamasaki had been, but Kenji was feeling more than marginally better by then. He wasn’t certain if it was the extra rest, the medicine his mother shoved down him, or the fear of god his mother had also shoved down him, but at least he was upright on his own power.

“You’re not hot,” Mai said, still in the doorway, yanking Kenji down by the shirt collar so she can put her hand against his forehead.

“You come into my own home and insult me to my face?”

“You’re definitely feeling better if you can joke,” Mai said as she retracted her hand. She pretended to give him a disdainful look; there wasn’t the usual tension in her jaw nor the chilliness in her gaze. “Do you think you’ll be back to school tomorrow?”

“Yes,” he replied. Come hell or high water, he wasn’t going to let this stupid cold knock him out for any longer than it had to. “How’s Kogane?”

“Kousuke-kun said he spoke with him, he’s doing better as well. He should be back tomorrow.”

Kenji took a steeling breath before working up the nerve for his next question. Mai arched a perfect eyebrow. “How bad did the match against Johzenji go?”

“Oh, we won.”

“We… what.”

“It wasn’t by any large margin, but the team pulled through, and they’re a mess, as usual. They apparently didn’t care once they saw you get hauled off, so they hardly tried,” Mai said with a flap of her hand. She brightened, grinning toothily, and Kenji only took half a step back. “What do you know, your team can function without you, captain! You did well raising them.”

“What are they, children?” Kenji asked weakly.

“Aren’t they?”

“Does that make you the mother?”

Mai still grinned, but somehow, it was more terrifying now. Kenji took a full step back. She did not follow him into his home. “ _You_ can be the mother, Futakuchi. Aone can be the father for all I care. I’m the vodka aunt who’s going to keep this family together no matter the cost.”

He swallowed. He believed that.

“Right. Thanks.”

Mai’s smile smoothed out into something normal humans could passably wear again. She patted his arm, a little stiff but certainly trying, and told him, “No problem! We’ll see you again tomorrow at practice, captain!”

“You’re trying to Pavlov me into some kind of kink, aren’t you,” Kenji asked.

Somehow, despite standing outside and the fact that the door opened inward, Mai managed to slam his door in his face.

 

—

 

Kenji sat for most of morning practice the next day. He felt mostly fine, definitely fine enough to be here, but he wouldn’t push himself. He already had once (apparently), and he wasn’t going to set a horrible example for his team. They’d probably eat him alive.

Mai wasn’t her usual gossipy self, but well, that’s what he had locker room talk for. There were a few concerned murmurs from teammates, plus a disappointed/worried talk from the coach; Kenji would rather pull his own fingernails off than ever repeat anything like it. But all in all, things survived without him.

Aone was still jumpy, though.

Kenji watched him through most of practice. Koganegawa wasn’t worked too hard, they collectively made sure of it, and he only whined a _little_. Kenji wondered if his home visit had spooked him into behaving. Or maybe he felt responsible for getting Kenji sick.

 _He_ did _get me sick_ , Kenji idly thought, not too sympathetic should that turn out to be the case. But it’d be a hassle to deal with, so hopefully not. They both survived, and the team had pulled through for another practice match. He’d just have to make sure Koganegawa got further polishing elsewhere.

They had two weeks until the preliminaries. Kenji told himself he wasn’t nervous—it was just the _preliminaries_ , god, they were a power school—but he couldn’t completely lie and say he was comfortable, either. There were always mistakes. There were always bad matchups. Since they’d lost against Karasuno in the Interhigh, they didn’t get seeded, which was almost more embarrassing in hindsight.

Well, sucked to be some poor, weak school who’d go up against Dateko in the first round.

There wasn’t much time for anything new to be implemented in two weeks. But that was enough time for some polish… probably. He sure damn hoped. Coach seemed to think so, and Mai was still doing her eternal force for praise and optimism routine, which Kenji privately (and reluctantly) admitted wasn’t so bad.

Priority one: shaping up Koganegawa’s setting. Priority two: shaping up Koganegawa’s blocking. Priorities three through ten million were working on _everyone’s_ receives. And serves. And the iron wall always needed strengthening. It felt weird, trying to plan his own team’s strategies for training, and he felt a little aimless himself. He was working on his serves, but he didn’t really feel like he had a direction aside from the team itself.

 _Had Moniwa felt like this?_ he wondered, of fucking course.

Kenji hung his head with a feeble, defeated kind of groan. Just for a single day, he’d like to go through a captain-related problem without comparing himself to Moniwa. (Then again, he’d rather have a single day where he didn’t have to worry about Koganegawa.)

“Feeling alright?” Mai asked. He needed to put a goddamn bell on her.

“Oh, you know, the usual. Overwhelmed by the responsibilities of captaincy and fretting over the upcoming prelims,” Kenji replied easily.

“Didn’t the fever steam your brain enough? Give it a rest.”

“I’d _love_ to.”

“Want me to ask Moniwa-san for advice for you?” Mai asked, a touch too serious for Kenji’s fragile pride right now. “It doesn’t have to come from you, even though you know he’d love to help—”

“I can handle that,” Kenji hastily interrupted. Getting babied while sick by the upperclassmen again had put things into a slightly better perspective where he would, tentatively, believe in things like team spirit and human goodwill. It’d brought back enough flashbacks, certainly. “There’s just not enough _time_.”

“You can’t be _that_ worried about the _preliminaries_ ,” Mai said, definitely more cruelly than she intended. She quickly realized her mistake, though, and backpedaled with a hand on Kenji’s leg and a painfully earnest expression. “I know you’re worried—that’s not what I meant to say! I’m worried, too, about you boys. But Dateko is a strong school. If you can’t believe in the team, then at least believe in how much you like to think you and Aone carry them.”

That worked unfairly well in appealing to his sense of logic. Kenji hated it. “Stop appealing to my baser sense of ego,” he grumbled, and made a show of turning from her to pout, so she’d know he wasn’t really miffed.

“Oh no, I’ve got the big bad captain all figured out,” she teased back and ruffled his hair.

He had to reclip his bangs, now glaring at her, but she helped with that, too.

 

—

 

Kenji finally found out why Aone had been acting so antsy. He’d initially chalked it up to nerves, if not about the preliminaries themselves, then the possibility of either missing Karasuno there or _facing_ Karasuno there. Just what they needed. Or hell, even about finals, though Aone usually didn’t worry about school like that.

It was Aone-san who shared, surprisingly, over a family dinner (plus Kenji). “So, Kenji-kun, do you know if you can make the party yet?”

Kenji froze, chopsticks halfway to his mouth, eyes wide. “…Party?”

“On the seventeenth?” Aone-san clarified, confused at first—then the realization set in, and she turned on her son with a surprisingly dark look. “Takanobu! I told you to invite him _two weeks_ ago!”

Aone’s cheeks turned red, mostly from the scolding rather than embarrassment, and Kenji cautiously resumed eating. _What kind of party?_

It took him too long to remember his supposed boyfriend’s birthday.

“R-Right! The party!” Kenji exclaimed, too loudly to be plausible. Even Hitomi looked close to calling him out. “No, uh, Aone told me about it. Just slipped my mind a bit, sorry! Exams and prelims coming up and all…”

Aone grunted in vague agreement that really didn’t help their case, either.

Aone-san sighed, cheek in her hand. “I knew I should have asked you myself. I never know what’s overstepping, but know that I never want to leave you out of anything, Kenji-kun. I didn’t think my son would _still_ be embarrassed to talk to his own boyfriend about these sorts of things.”

“Niisan’s delicate,” Hitomi said around a mouthful of rice.

“It’s on the seventeenth?” Kenji asked, as carefully as he could, and Aone-san sighed again and nodded. That was the weekend after the preliminaries, so outside of volleyball practice, it’s not like he had any plans that far out. “Yeah, I can make it. Thanks for the invite.”

It was easy to wait until after dinner to corner Aone, but difficult to shake Hitomi. It took a promise of an extended hair-playing session from the both of them before they could slink into his room without being followed.

But as soon as Aone eased the door closed, Kenji was on him. “What’s so special about this that your _mom_ had to invite me?”

Aone averted his eyes. It was halfway guilt, halfway embarrassment, and that only made Kenji’s suspicions grow. “…Family’s visiting,” Aone finally admitted, after a lengthy pause.

Considering Kenji was halfway into being adopted into the Aone family, he didn’t necessarily see the issue. He _liked_ Aone’s family.

…But he had never met any extended family. Aone was taciturn as a default, so Kenji didn’t know a lot about these people.

“Oh. I’m coming as the boyfriend, aren’t I,” Kenji realized aloud. Aone nodded, a little stiffly, then ducked out from Kenji’s space. “Oh. Huh. You really think your mom wants to announce it?” Aone-san was supportive, almost to a fault, and it wasn’t like Hitomi was great at secrets, either. It could be a preemptive measure. Or maybe they were really close with other members of their family. Maybe they just didn’t have secrets and were all warm, friendly people who also wanted to halfway adopt Kenji.

Aone sat down on his bed, and Kenji remained standing, awkwardly hovering by the shut door. For some reason, he didn’t want to approach again just yet.

“Do you feel like this is some kind of betrayal of your crush?” Kenji asked.

Aone snorted, actually _snorted_ , and shook his head. Kenji thought he saw a glimpse of a smile, too.

“Do you not want your family to know about you being gay or something? Would they be against it?”

Aone shrugged, which wasn’t reassuring, but it also didn’t seem to be the issue.

Kenji folded his arms across his chest. “You’ve got to give me something to work with here. Sorry for not picking up that something was bothering you earlier, but you could’ve told me, you know? We’re dating.”

Aone leveled a flat look at him.

“We’re friends, at least.”

“Yeah,” Aone quietly replied. He picked at invisible lint on his pant leg. This time, Kenji was determined to wait him out. It took awhile, but eventually Aone spoke again. “It’s… big.”

Well, that was fair. To not only tell your family you were dating someone, but to come out in the same moment? Yeah, he could see why that’d make Aone nervous. “Okay, so don’t tell anyone. I’ll just go as your friend, or I won’t go at all. Easy fix.”

Aone shook his head, now looking frustrated, and Kenji struggled to keep up. “Just that mom thought this. It’s big,” Aone said.

Kenji cocked his head, but Aone wasn’t as forthcoming this time. He gave up his position at the door, walked over, and sat down on the bed with careful distance between them. “She’d understand, you know. She’s _really_ understanding.”

Aone nodded. “I never thought it’d get this far.”

That gave Kenji pause. Because yeah, he’d definitely never saw that, either. It would’ve been easier to call it off earlier—still easier the earlier it was—but Kenji’s attached. “It’s nice, pretending, but I know what you mean, man. I don’t like the thought of lying, though for the most part, nothing’s changed.”

Aone nodded again. His family knew, and their team knew, and nothing had changed. Some awkward situations, sure, and Kenji preferred not to think of Kamasaki at all in this already messy equation, but as far as fake relationships went, this was a pretty sweet deal.

“If you ever wanted to call this off, then yeah, we could quit it. Stage some breakup.” But as soon as the words left Kenji’s mouth, they turned sour, and he frowned at himself. “I mean… I don’t _want_ that. Hitomi calls me niichan now, and your mom is _super_ nice. I like these family dinners, and I like how much they care about me—and I’ve only realized how selfish it sounds after I already said it. Sorry.”

Aone smiled, however, small and blameless. “It’s okay. I know.”

Kenji relaxed into the space left between them. So did Aone. “It’s not _lying_ to anyone, really…? We’re not hurting anyone. I don’t want everyone to hate me if we admit it was all fake, and I don’t want to have some big messy breakup, either. The team dynamic would tank, I’d get kicked out of your family…”

He might only now be thinking of the exact ramifications of their actions, and it might be allowing guilt to dribble down into his belly, but as things actually _were_ , Kenji didn’t mind anything. This was a comfortable place for him to occupy by Aone’s side. It was corny as hell, but he liked the family feeling he got here. God knew he didn’t get it elsewhere.

They couldn’t really say they weren’t lying anymore, either. They kind of had. There could be hurt feelings to deal with if they admitted it was all fake. Or there’d be weird feelings if they staged a breakup. Kenji hadn’t anticipated this level of commitment, either—meeting the family and all—but that scared him less than Certain People accusing him of lying.

And, Kenji knew with hopeless realism but no true bad feelings, everyone would take Aone’s side in a breakup. They’d assume he was the asshole, as usual. It didn’t bother him, but it wasn’t something he looked forward to.

“I guess I’m saying I don’t want to break up just yet, after all,” Kenji admitted with a forced laugh. Aone didn’t call him on it, bless him. “It feels like it’d be more of a divorce than a breakup, you know? But I understand if you don’t wanna drag more of your family into it. Just let me know what you want to do.”

“What do you want to do?” he quietly asked.

Aone was trying not to give him the shovel to dig them deeper, but Kenji was afraid of life outside of the hole, if he was running with that metaphor.

“This is a mess,” Kenji muttered. It’s the only response he can give right now.

 

—

 

“What do you mean, _study_?” Kenji asked with as much scorn as he could muster. It was a lot. He was good at scorn.

He was also, to the surprise of many (for _some reason_ ), very good at school.

“Oh, you know what this is like,” Mai scolded and tried to smack him. He ducked out of the way with a smirk.

“What’s what like?” Koganegawa asked, glancing between them. Fukiage and Sakunami mirrored the movement, leaving Kenji to wonder when the first years got so cute in their mannerisms.

“Team study date,” Obara told them with a grin. “Finals are next week, and we know with practice, everyone doesn’t have as much time to study as they otherwise might. So we do this once or twice before exams, all together.”

“It’s a desperate, last-minute cram session,” Kenji translated. Even Mai couldn’t dispute that one. “And yes, we _do_ do it all together. It’s good review for the upperclassmen, and certain very talented teammates are actually _very_ good at certain subjects.”

“He’s an eighth American and he’s totally fluent in English,” Obara, in turn, translated with a gesture at his captain. “We leech.”

“Mercilessly,” Onagawa added in a deadpan.

“ _Hey_!”

“Woah, I didn’t know you weren’t Japanese!” Koganegawa exclaimed.

“I _am_ Japanese, and now I’m not helping you especially!” Kenji retorted. Aone patted his shoulder, sympathetically, but a little too hard. They’d already gone through this last year when they were the new ones in the team.

Kenji, good at school, in class A, and overall high above average in grades, glowered at his teammates. He was the son of a doctor and a medical journalist—what did they expect out of his grades?

He didn’t exactly _not_ want to have a study session with his teammates. It was useful. He’d just rather have the time to practice, with the tournament looming.

He also had the feeling whose place they would want to use for their study session.

Last year, the third years had pulled rank, but this year, _he_ was top dog. Kenji was not afraid to do the same to his darling kouhai. Someone _else_ can deal with the nightmare of a ton of teenaged boys (plus Mai) camping out in their living room for a day.

They, of course, ended up at the Futakuchi residence.

(Aone had a nice house but Hitomi would be a bother; Mai’s parents would never let her have a boy over, much less an entire team; Obara had a tiny apartment with three younger siblings and a dog to cram into it; Koganegawa had a tiny apartment and a territorial older sister; Fukiage lived with his grandparents and not even Kenji could subject nice old people to their kind of nightmare; Sakunami’s parents were out of town and he was staying with an aunt. The team had made a _list_ for him. Kenji hated all of them.)

At least, as the host, he didn’t have to chip in for any of the snacks or drinks. Some silver lining.

“This place is so nice!” Sakunami exclaimed as he ducked into the entryway.

Kenji shrugged. “I guess. No one’s home right now, so make yourselves at home, but just so everyone knows—if you break anything, you’re answering to my mother.”

“Thanks for having us!” Obara cheerfully said.  

Kenji knew the second years’ strengths and weaknesses, but the first years were a collective new. Surprisingly, Koganegawa was in class A, though Kenji personally wondered if it was some kind of dumb luck. Sakunami, on the other hand, came with annotated, color-coded notes. Fukiage looked like he may weep at the sight of them. (Obara definitely was.)

Mai was in charge of history and literature. Kenji was put in charge of English. Aone had math, with Obara there to translate (especially for the trig). The first years were their eager sponges.

It was nowhere near as chaotic as last year’s sessions. Loud, yes, but an hour in, no one had even spilled a drink. Koganegawa turned out to be some kind of freakish booksmart study terror, and Mai was one of those people who got into a study groove and tuned out the world. Aone didn’t have to separate anyone, Moniwa wasn’t trying to stop fights, and Onagawa didn’t have to relive the nightmare of first year Japanese history. It was shockingly productive.

The team fit together as well there as they did on the court, which was even more shocking, but somehow heartwarming, too. Not that Kenji would admit it, but more than once, he caught himself watching Aone and Obara walk one of the first years through something.

No wonder Moniwa was such a sap. He had to deal with all of these _captainly feelings_ all the time. No one warned him about that, that’s for sure.

The comfortable peace was broken by the sound of the doorbell.

“Did someone order food?” Koganegawa asked, eternally hopeful.

“You’re paying for it, then,” Kenji replied as he went to go check.

Opening the door, he found Kamasaki and Sasaya. He'd rather the food.

He tried to shut the door again, but Sasaya wedged his shoe between it and the frame, and Kenji didn’t particularly want to break his foot. “Oi, is that any way to greet your beloved senpai?” Sasaya chided and nudged the door open himself.

“Who invited you,” Kenji flatly demanded. He needed to know who to give extra laps to.

“Mai-chan, of course.”

The loophole. Of course. Maybe he’d try to get her to run laps, anyway. Kenji grudgingly let them inside, noting the way that Kamasaki staunchly avoided eye contact. The last time they’d seen each other, it had also been here. Kenji only had hazy memories, but he knew it involved tea, weirdly comfortable laughter, and his mother’s ire.

“And Moniwa-senpai couldn’t make it?” Kenji asked in what was meant to be a neutral voice. It came out hopeful. He tried to hide his warm face with a toss of his hair as he turned his back on them, presumably to lead them into the living room. As if they didn’t know his apartment’s layout.

“Cram school was probably the better alternative to goofing off under the cover of studying,” Sasaya replied. “So, like the responsible adults we are, we came to make sure _your_ goofing off under the cover of studying is at least somewhat productive.”

“It had been,” Kenji replied, “until you showed up.”

Somehow—the universe hated him today particularly or something—Kenji ends up wedged next to Kamasaki at the corner of the table. Alright, so he didn’t strictly need an English textbook to go over verb tenses, but just because he had the largest open space didn’t mean there was a _lot_ of room. His thigh was pressed up tight against Kamasaki’s. Their elbows brushed.

This was infinitely distracting to Kenji. It was rare that he and Kamasaki existed in close proximity without something exploding.

Despite the bright-eyed and bushy-tailed trio of enthusiastic first years awaiting his Total Fluency (Kenji _wasn’t_ totally fluent in English, except compared to slacker high school boys), Kenji found himself tripping over pronunciation and grammar that he had never had issue with before. He lost his sparkle—except to Koganegawa, of course, who for some god-awful reason thought the sun still shone out Kenji’s ass—and a lot of his credit as a multitalented, clever person got shot and left to die.

It was a slow, undignified death.

It absolutely didn’t help that whenever Kamasaki laughed at him, it’d only end up jostling their points of contact, and half the time, that pushed him further against Kenji.

What should have been a productive study session became a suffering session instead, leaving Kenji to mull over his supposed relationship with a fresh eye.


	5. dessert (sometimes life can be sweet after all) before dinner (because kenji still adored familial domesticity)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The one where Kenji thought too much about kisses and talks are had.

Exams went smoothly.

The prelims for the Spring High went even more smoothly.

The first round was a terrible matchup—for their opponents. Kenji was pretty damn sure it was the _shortest_ official match he had ever played in. They stomped them, ruthlessly, and he was so giddy after the match he nearly tried to hug Koganegawa.

Nearly.

He got over it.

Their second match was a little tougher, but they still beat them in two sets. Onagawa had a bad landing and had to be subbed out, and Koganegawa crashed into Kenji _again_ , but it was a solid victory.

By the second day and final match, their fearsome reputation returned in full force.

The third years showed up, because of course they did, and Kenji wasn’t upset in the least. He preened under Moniwa’s praise after the match—Dateko secured their spot in the Spring High, and he felt _good_. Koganegawa’s setting was getting better, Sakunami kept improving by leaps and bounds, and his own serves had never been better.

Maybe he _could_ handle this captaincy thing after all.

When he accepted a high five from Kamasaki after the match, their hands lingered against each other a little longer than necessary.

Kenji was happy about that, too.  

 

—

 

“Can I confess something?” Kenji asked, eyes averted, hands clasped before him. He always tried to be respectful of Aone’s father, even before this relationship started. “I mean, I’m dating your son, and my own dad is… well, not an option. I just feel like this is spiralling, and I have a pretty short list of adults I trust, especially someone I could ask about this.”

Aone got his height and build from his father, that was for sure. Kenji used to be intimidated whenever he saw him—he may be used to Aone’s glare and resting bitch face, but _god_ , seeing it on a grown man inspired fear like little else could. But Kenji got used to it, over time.

“I just… I think I _need_ to tell someone, but I don’t want to dump this all on Aone. He’s a good guy, you know? I mean—of course you know, he’s _your_ son.” He was talking himself in circles. Kenji pushes past his embarrassment and tucks some of his loose hair behind his ear. “He’s a good guy. I don’t want to hurt him. But we’re not _really_ dating each other, sir. I don’t know what to do.”

“Are you using tousan as a confessional again?” came Aone’s voice behind him, and Kenji jumped and _squeaked_. Incriminatingly.

“Maybe I’m asking him for your hand in marriage,” Kenji complained, twisting away from the altar for a moment. The incense was beginning to bother his nose, anyway.

Aone knelt beside him, bowing his head and sharing his own private thoughts with his father. Kenji stared at his clasped hands in his lap.

“He’d like you,” Aone informed him.

Aone-san told Kenji that, _frequently_ in fact, but it was stupidly reassuring to hear that from Aone, too. Kenji hated how needy he’d become. “So we have your parents’ blessing if we were to actually date,” Kenji mumbled. “But we’re not. I just wanted to let him know.”

Aone nodded, understanding. He has always been weirdly understanding of Kenji’s attachment to his family, even his father’s altar. Kenji knew his own home life was fucked up, but he felt guilty _sometimes_. Though he _didn’t_ use him as a _confessional_ , god.

“Maybe if Hitomi-chan’s bullshit had to get through him, too, I wouldn’t have shoved my foot in my mouth so far,” Kenji remarked. “ _She_ should tell her father all her gossip, get it out of her system, before spouting it off at school.”

“She does, sometimes,” Aone told him. Kenji nodded. “But she likes talking to you, more. She doesn’t remember tousan much.”

Kenji could sympathize.

“Do you want me to meet the rest of your family?” Kenji quietly asked. “I’m not going ahead with this without you at my side. I’m not going to be selfish like that. This is _your_ family, not _mine_ , and I shouldn’t have gotten so weird about all of this.”

Aone bumped his shoulder, a little more roughly than strictly necessary, but that was Aone for you. Kenji glanced up at him through his bangs. “You’re always welcome here,” Aone said. Then, flatly, and with no trace of softness in his expression, he added, “Dear.”

Kenji burst out laughing.

He felt a little better, maybe.

 

—

 

Kenji ended up going to Aone’s birthday party only as his friend.

He personally had a private bet with himself on how long the secret would keep, with Hitomi present, but things couldn’t possibly get worse. He had little chance of remembering all of Aone’s family, since a surprising number visited, but he made sure to be extra nice to his grandparents and all of the little cousins. Once the children realized that Kenji had no issue lifting or carrying any of them, he was used as a human tree for most of the evening.

It earned him brownie points with the extended family, and he didn’t even have to try that hard. He got free food, the cake was particularly amazing, and it was nice to see Aone smile so much. _Weird_ , but nice.

They hit a snag after the party, however.

“Kenji-kun, could you get the spare futon out from the hallway closet please?” Aone-san called from the kitchen. Two of the aunts were still there, helping pack away extra food while catching up on family gossip, and thankfully neither Aone nor Kenji were expected to take any part.

“Alright!” Kenji called back. He had to interrupt his game of cards with Hitomi and another younger cousin, but he soothed her with a ruffle of her hair. It had been done up so prettily at the beginning of the evening, but after she insisted on carrying around one of the toddlers and received a bit too much hair-pulling, it was rather a mess now. She didn’t mind it.

Kenji fetched the futon, and awkwardly waited in the hallway for a moment, before ducking his head downstairs to try to find Aone. He wasn’t sure where this was going, exactly.

But Hitomi popped up at the base of the stairs. “Kenji-niichan, are you staying with niisan, or me? I have room in my room!”

“I… what?”

“I’ll move my desk and then you can have the floor. We can have a sleepover,” Hitomi informed him like she’s deigning to explain the concept of slumber parties to him as a great favor.

 _I’m staying the night?_ Kenji thought, confused. _I’m staying the night as Aone’s boyfriend?_ Oh, yikes. It was already pretty late, granted, but his usual nocturnal leanings made him forget that other people’s mothers may not enjoy sending him home at such an hour. Especially incredibly supportive mothers of his supposed boyfriend.

Uh-oh.

“You can set that up in Takanobu’s room,” Aone-san called as she came up the stairs, ushering Hitomi before her. “Hitomi, why don’t you help him?”

“I want him to sleep in my room! I called first dibs on the sleepover!”

“Hitomi, you’re sleeping with me, so your aunt and cousins can have your room.” Passing Kenji in the narrow hallway, Aone-san paused, sparing him an uncharacteristically cool look. “You boys have done nothing to make me question my trust, but this is a matter of convenience, not of blessing. Am I understood, Kenji-kun?”

“Y-Yes ma’am,” Kenji replied, straightening a little.

She smiled fondly and dragged her daughter off to get her ready for bed.

Kenji slunk into Aone’s room like a man approaching the gallows. Even if they _were_ dating, the thought of doing anything with so much family so close made his skin crawl. But she was going to _assume things_.

Kenji came to the dawning, horrified realization that she probably assumed they were already _doing things_. At the very least, kissing. Aone-san didn’t strike him as particularly scandalous, and she made them keep Aone’s door open whenever he hung out there, but she has been unusually supportive of two teenage boys, and what trouble they could get into.

Kenji imagined kissing Aone.

He wished the house were empty so he could scream into the folded futon in his arms.

Aone wasn’t a _bad_ guy. Not classically handsome, sure, but Kenji’s tastes already ran in the taller and bulkier direction. He liked his hair, he supposed. He had a nice voice. He was a really great friend, and teammate. He was someone Kenji could count among his closest friends, a trusted confidant, someone he could rely on both on the court and off.

But Kenji _really_ had other, more hopeful plans for his first kiss.

There was also the matter of the fact that he would _never_ , under any circumstance, admit to Aone or anyone else that he was sixteen and had yet to kiss anyone outside of family. (Alright, that one time last year he kissed Obara on a dare, but they both agreed that that _definitely_ had not counted.)

But it was kind of embarrassing, wasn’t it, being sixteen and no first kiss? He wasn’t the type of guy to save himself or anything like that. He just… had kind of hoped things played out differently than standing in his fake boyfriend’s room thinking about kissing him. Like, what if Kamasaki had suddenly grown the balls to talk about his goddamn feelings. What if _Kenji_ had.

Kamasaki would tease him about first kisses.

Should he practice?

“What are you doing?” Aone asked, directly behind him, making Kenji jump like a startled cat. He nearly dropped the futon, then almost tripped over where it was dragging a little, and somehow ended up doing neither but probably having a heart attack instead. It was okay. His mother could fix a little cardiac arrest, surely.

“This is a bad idea,” Kenji hissed at him without explanation.

Aone looked down at the futon in his arms, then up at his no-doubt flustered face.

“Look, we both know I’m a night owl. I _swear_ , I’m fine to go home. Trains are still running! I’m a hundred and eighty some centimeters of snark and badass, no one is going to try to jump me. Let me sneak out of here.”

“Why are you nervous?” Aone asked, brows coming low in wary concern.

“Your mother is _assuming things_.” Kenji sounded strangled. He _felt_ strangled. “You’re right—this is big. Meeting the family, your mom thinking we’re gonna try to bang, and…”

Aone shook his head, and grabbed Kenji’s forearm from over the thick blanket. “Kaasan doesn’t think that.”

“She’s going to think I’m going to steal your virginity or something!” Kenji hissed at him, and Aone’s face flushed brilliant red. He slapped a hand over Kenji’s mouth, a little too forcefully, but hell, he probably deserved it. He had never known when to hold his tongue when it counted.

“Stop. Talking.”

Kenji glared at him over his fingers.

Aone took the futon from him, angry himself, and rather half-assedly laid it out on his bedroom floor. He pointed, and Kenji sat down on it, cross-legged. People were still up, and they both still had to get ready for bed, but he didn’t feel like facing anyone else when he felt on the cusp of some sort of weird emotional outburst. It wasn’t even about his captaincy. Ha-ha, hilarious.

“If you tell me to stop talking, it means _you_ have to talk,” Kenji flatly told him.

“Kaasan and Hitomi like you,” Aone began. A good start, but it only made Kenji feel guiltier about it all. “So does my family. I’m happy about that.”

Kenji nodded, both patient because he knew Aone chose his words carefully, and impatient because he was losing his goddamn mind here.

“If you want to stop this, we can. But we have to talk about _how_. In the morning.”

“You’re not letting me sneak out, are you.”

Aone’s dead stare was answer enough.

Kenji didn’t get much sleep that night. He wasn’t sure Aone did, either, but at least Kenji was used to running on little sleep.

His thoughts were consumed with Aone-san’s trust in him. He wasn’t sure he had _ever_ had that kind of trust from an adult, much less someone he kind of rather liked. Kind of liked as a mother figure, if he were being honest with himself. Oh, he had freedom to spare at home, but that was more because his parents just weren’t _there_ to try to put a leash on him. He didn’t end up a delinquent. He got good grades. They rarely seemed to care otherwise.

But Aone-san knew he had the potential for trouble—in the form of her son—and trusted him to behave.

It was novel. It squeezed something weird in his chest. It made him think about breaking the rules, just because that was who he _was_. Even if he wouldn’t misbehave, he still had to _think_ about it, because Kenji thought about every possible route to take. He liked to think it made him a good captain. A good ace, for sure.

What if he just gave in?

What if he just _actually_ dated Aone?

He was a nice guy. Kenji liked him as a person. He liked his family, and they liked him. Not much would change about their schedules.

Kenji screwed his eyes shut tight and thought about obnoxious laughter that he swore he hated but actually rather liked.

 

—

 

Kenji, because he was a coward who could run just fine on an hour and a half of sleep, slunk out at dawn when the only people awake were Aone-san and one of the youngest cousins. He gave her a cheerful goodbye, thanked her for the invitation to the party, and assured her that he didn’t want to wake Aone so early.

He wound up at the school, even though it was Sunday, and unlocked the gym himself. Captain’s perk, he supposed.

He practiced serves until his hand was aching and his legs wouldn’t lift him anymore.

He then laid there, splayed like a starfish on his back, and stared at the morning light filtering through the high windows. He didn’t feel as pathetic as he probably should. He felt that he owed the universe more patheticness.

“I’m sorry for being such an asshole,” he shouted to the ceiling and universe at large. “I’m sorry I’m like this. I’m sorry I have to be like this. I don’t know how to stop, but I wish I could. Can you cut me a break, now?”

Neither the gym ceiling nor the universe answered him. He supposed that was fair.

Just when he was beginning to catch his breath and wondered how he’d get home on jellied legs, he heard the gym door click open again. He knew it wasn’t any staff member, so he figured it was Aone, because Kenji was generally a creature of habit when upset. And they _did_ have to have a talk.

Instead, Aone punished him for running out that morning.

Kamasaki leaned into his field of vision.

“What are _you_ doing here?!” Kenji screeched, scuttling away from him with haste fueled purely by panic.

Kamasaki set his hands on his hips and just _watched_. He didn’t laugh at Kenji’s startle reflex. He wasn’t smiling or smirking or grinning at all. “Aone texted me, told me to come pick your dumb ass up from the gym. You guys have a fight?”

Kenji stared at him, processing.

He deserved this. He deserved Aone’s irritation, and he probably deserved Kamasaki seeing him in sweaty, rumpled clothing and mussed from a lack of sleep. Hell, he’d seen him like that before.

“Great,” Kenji croaked. “Great! _I’m_ the asshole, of course I am! Yeah, we had a _fight_ , and I’m the bad guy! I always am!”

Maybe he wasn’t functioning on so little sleep as well as he’d assumed. Maybe it was his own jumbled emotions from the night before. Maybe it was Kamasaki’s mere presence; maybe Kenji had some sort of instinctual response to raise his voice and spout whatever shit came first to him.

“Dude, are you okay?” Kamasaki asked, frowning. “I’m not taking sides, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

“I _know_ the team will. I’m not—I’m not _upset_ by that, I know it’ll happen. No one will actually hate me or anything, I know that.” Kenji will hate the teasing and perhaps some harsh words will be said that ought to not be voiced aloud, but he was pretty sure that the team wouldn’t break apart should he and Aone break up. They can talk their way through that.

But Aone’s _family_.

Kenji would lose them for sure.

“Are you okay?” Kamasaki repeated, and stepped closer to him like he was trying to approach an injured feral dog.

Kenji did not want to do this in front of him. Or at all, preferably. “I’m _fine_ , senpai,” he spat with undue venom. “I’m allowed to be upset when I fight with my boyfriend, right?”

Kamasaki reared back as if burned.

Kenji was pretty damn sure he hated himself right then.

“I don’t know what’s goin’ on with either of you two, but you don’t gotta bite _my_ head off just for tryin' to play nice.”

Kenji had no idea what to do with a _nice_ Kamasaki. He didn’t like that he only got to see him after he became captain and Aone’s boyfriend.

“I’m just tryin’ to help. I thought Aone could be upset, and I wanted to check on you, too. I don’t want either of ya getting hurt over this, okay?” Kamasaki added, glaring at the far wall. He sounded frustrated. Kenji didn’t blame him in the least.

“I’m sorry,” Kenji said in a small voice. He drew his knees up to his chest and hid his face between them. He hid from Kamasaki’s stunned silence. Kenji could probably count on one hand how many times he’d _actually_ apologized to the guy, after all.

“Are you _okay_?” Kamasaki repeated, yet again.

“Aone-san is really nice,” he miserably admitted. “She likes me a lot. I don’t know _why_.”

“Hell if I know, either.”

Kenji raised his head enough to glare at him, and Kamasaki finally cracked a smile.

“There ya go. You were scarin’ me for a minute there, you jackass.”

Kenji buried his head in his folded arms again. “You’re a bastard.”

“I’m the bastard who’s dragging ya back to Aone, so c’mon, up. On your feet. Unless you can tell me, right now, to my face, that you don’t wanna go back to his house because of some actually serious shit between you two, I’m not lettin’ you slink off and sulk and drive Aone up a wall. He doesn’t deserve that.”

Kamasaki grabbed Kenji’s arm with not even half of his usual roughness. He hauled him to his feet with ease, despite the lack of cooperation on Kenji’s part.

They were nearly nose-to-nose. Kenji smelled like sweat and morning breath and who knew what else. Kamasaki, this close, looked tired, too.

“Didn’t you work last night?” Kenji asked.

“Why do you still know my work schedule?” Kamasaki asked in return.

“You always work on Saturday nights,” Kenji replied. Kamasaki had been taking Saturday nights for over a year now, despite the fact that he often worked past midnight and rarely caught up on sleep. He had taken them ever since he’d learned that Kenji had his own terrible sleep schedule and was prone to wandering out past curfew.

There had been nights when Kamasaki had stopped by after his shift to make sure Kenji got to sleep at a reasonable hour. He wasn’t the only one, of course—Sasaya had invited himself over more than once, going so far as to try to dose Kenji with sleeping aids, and Moniwa had cheerfully become Kenji’s alarm clock consistently enough that he _had_ to go to sleep earlier just to deal with his early morning sunshine persona.

Dateko had always taken care of their own.

Kenji still remembered Kamasaki’s work schedule, though. And Kamasaki had never changed it.

They were still so close, now. Kenji knew, just as he probably knew last night, that he _didn’t_ want to kiss Aone. He definitely wanted to kiss Kamasaki. Now would be a pretty gross moment, but he also kind of liked the idea of Kamasaki putting up with his grossness for a brief moment just because _he_ wanted to kiss him, too.

But Kamasaki had never said anything.

Kenji was an optimist, but not a blind one.

“I can walk myself back, senpai. Thanks for checking up on me,” Kenji told him with a falsely bright smile. “I’ll go make up with Aone-kun, don’t worry. I wouldn’t want to break any hearts today.”

Kamasaki did not follow him.

 

—

 

When Aone came over to Kenji’s, he’d had the time to shower and change, but he still felt wrung-out and a mess.

He didn’t feel guilty for seeking out a hug, either.

“I don’t want to lose you. I don’t want to lose your family,” Kenji said into Aone’s shoulder. “You’re my best friend, and you know I’m greedy for any kind of attention.”

“You don’t have to make a joke out of it,” Aone replied. “I know.”

Aone and the other second years knew, too, of course. They had all taken turns babysitting each other out of bad habits. Kenji just happened to be one of the stubborn ones.

“Kaasan asked if you were okay, after you left.”

Kenji snorted. “I told her not to wake you…”

“She’s worried about you. She wants you to be happy.”

Kenji was surprised she noticed anything off at all. He made sure to remain polite and cheerful in her presence.

Aone sighed, and with a gentleness that belied his size, he pried Kenji away from him. Kenji made a grumpy noise, not done with Needy Futakuchi Time just yet. But Aone held him at arm’s length, expression serious. “What do you want to do?” he asked.

“You know me, Aone. I’m selfish.”

“You’re scared.”

“ _You’re_ scared,” Kenji snapped back, tired of his sore spots being prodded. “ _You’re_ the one too scared to admit you like that Karasuno first year. What does it matter if your mother knows? She apparently loves the fact that you have a boyfriend! Do you know what I’d do for—” He cut himself off too late.

“Kenji,” Aone said, and Kenji’s cheeks traitorously heated at the use of his given name. It was too intimate. It was almost like they were a real couple or something. “I know. I know your family sucks.”

“One way of putting it.”

“Kaasan adores you. So does Hitomi. You’re welcome with them. You don’t want to give that up. I’m not asking you to,” Aone said, shaking his head, and dropped his arms at last. Kenji did not step forward again, however.

“I know it’s big to confess to your crush,” Kenji mumbled, rubbing his arm. He can’t look at him, and his face still felt too warm. “I get that, I guess. It sucks. But you… you actually stand a chance at yours, I think.”

Aone shook his head again.

“Different schools aren’t that big of a deal. You both have a lot in common, and he tracked you down again after the match. That means something.”

Kenji didn’t want to plant false hope, of course, but he won’t let Aone talk himself out of this. He had _seen them_. Kenji wanted to be an optimist for him.

He looked Aone in the eye again. Aone, of course, had never looked away, but that was just him. Too intense and too focused for his own good.

“If you stood a chance. If you felt you _really stood a chance_ , would you take it?” Kenji asked.

“Would you?” Aone asked back.

“I’ve had a year and a half of chances. It’s not happening.”

“Not if you have a boyfriend,” he said, unamused.

“What are we going to do? Let’s figure this out, right here, right now. Moving forward, what are we going to do?” Kenji demanded. “Do you want to break up? We can figure out a way that the team will buy but won’t hate us for. Maybe we can figure out a way that your family doesn’t hate me, I don’t know.”

“I don’t know how,” Aone admitted. “I’ve thought about it.”

Kenji didn’t know how, either.

They didn’t break up.

 

—

 

With exams, preliminaries, and family gatherings out of the way, life went on. Actual Spring High prelims for Nationals were at the end of October, which left them about two months to practice. Kenji was _going to_ shape Koganegawa up, or else. The universe owed him this.

Koganegawa apparently thought differently.

Kenji was going to tear his hair out.

“I wanna learn how to do cool feints!” Koganegawa cried in pitiful defense as Kenji rounded on him, _yet again_. “Cool setters do feints when they do dumps!”

“You’re still a baby setter, though,” Sakunami piped up. Koganegawa let out a wail that sounded like he’d been shot.

“Koganegawa,” Oiwake called, further crushing Koganegawa’s mood, “don’t get distracted.”

Kenji went to grab a drink before he tried to throttle his beloved underclassman. He saw Oiwake call over both Koganegawa and Sakunami, hopefully talking some sense into him, and he sulkily chewed on his water bottle as he watched. It’d be great if the coach _could_ talk some sense into him.

But it kinda would have been better if Kenji had managed it himself.

“You don’t _have_ to do everything yourself,” Mai chided like she’d read his mind.

“Can you get out of my brain for one whole practice session?”

“Coach Oiwake is really good at what he does. I know _you_ listen to him, and so does the rest of the team, but sometimes, I feel like you’re trying to do his job for him.”

“I’m surprised he hasn’t gone any greyer yet,” Kenji said with a laugh, “dealing with us all the time. Maybe I’m trying to ease his workload a little.”

“The whole world doesn’t _have_ to be on your shoulders,” Mai sighed. She nudged his shoulder with her own. Kenji allowed himself to be jostled, even if he was normally used to Aone- and Koganegawa-level jostling. “Don’t worry, everyone still gushes about the _captain_ when a team goes to the finals or Nationals. No one’s stealing your glory.”

“I would _gladly_ give up my glory if it meant I could get something to work for this team,” Kenji snorted.

Mai thumped him, _hard_ , on the back. Kenji coughed his water back up.

“This team is _amazing_ ,” Mai hissed at him, “and your head is so far up your own ass that you can’t see what we still have. Kanji-kun is still rough around the edges, yes, and you have a bunch of first years to train up. That doesn’t mean the iron wall has suddenly crumpled or anything! Moniwa-san still believes in you all, so if nothing else, believe in _him_.”

“Moniwa was an optimist,” Kenji mumbled, just because he _had_ to argue to save face.

Mai smiled, a little hard, and thumped him on the back again. Slightly gentler this time. At least Kenji didn’t almost die.

Kenji watched Oiwake talk Sakunami through his strategy with Koganegawa. Again. It was nothing new, but at least Koganegawa seemed to be taking it seriously. “You just have to get the ball from one high point to another,” Oiwake told him. “Save the flashy bits for flashier teams.”

Kenji considered it character development that Koganegawa didn’t immediately demand that Dateko become a flashier team.

“And I heard that quip about the grey hair, Futakuchi,” Oiwake called over. “Extra laps for our dedicated captain.”

Kenji groaned.

 

—

 

Kenji _shrieked_ when cold water was suddenly dumped down his back.

He twisted around, trying to pull the freezing fabric off his back, and of course found Kamasaki and Sasaya rolling on the ground, cackling, behind him. No points to guess who actually did it.

Kenji whipped off his soaked shirt and threw it at Kamasaki’s face. The wet _splat_ sound was viscerally satisfying.

Aone was gone from practice for the day, helping his mother and aunt with moving furniture. (Kenji had almost volunteered, too, and hell, Aone-san would have let him—but Dateko couldn’t afford to lose both of them for even a day.) Which meant no one was present who had the immediate reflex to pull them apart.

Kenji stomped off to retrieve an extra practice jersey, arms crossed in a bid for heat as well as to showcase his irritation.

Oiwake was one of those coaches who tended to advise from a distance. Kenji was more than fine with that. It encouraged the captains and vices to have a strong hand in dealing with their teams, gave the manager more power, and generally made for better team dynamics. His coach in middle school had been like that, too.

But it also meant that his punishments were:

  1. Prone to being almost exclusively related to extra laps or drills.
  2. Given often and with extreme bias.
  3. Declared at a _distance_.



Kenji didn’t mind extra laps or drills or even seals. Workaholic that he was, he didn’t like being _punished_ , but he knew he usually deserved it (at least partially), and it improved him as a player. He was used to exhaustion with practice. Extra duties didn’t faze him.

So Oiwake’s methods actually didn’t _work_ on Kenji except to publicly shame him. Which, admittedly, was the part that kind of worked.

Thankfully, the team was independent and strong-willed in their own right. They self-disciplined and came down on one another for infractions, misbehaving, and mistakes. Aone got _very_ used to breaking up fights between Kenji and Kamasaki, Mai got _very_ used to exercising her own power, Kenji got _very_ used to dragging Aone away from other teams’ aces during tournaments, and Moniwa had gotten _very_ used to dealing with them as a collective unit of miscreants.

But with Aone gone, with Moniwa at cram school, and with Oiwake only one step up from useless at breaking up fights between teenaged boys, Kenji and Kamasaki were going to have a _hell_ of a practice.

It was difficult to learn how to serve so much lower than normal, but Kenji got it soon enough, and Kamasaki made for a nice target. Kenji hit him more than he didn’t. He caught on after the second time, of course, but it was because they had to force Koganegawa to practice blocking and that Aone was absent that they couldn’t swap sides. There were only so many options for a practiced iron wall, after all.

Kamasaki somehow managed to douse Kenji _again_ , and he had to borrow an extra shirt from Obara the second time. He also began trying to steal spikes from Kenji, confusing poor Koganegawa when they both called for a toss and he was supposed to make a _decision_ —he could hardly set as it was, much less try to figure out in a split-second who might be the better choice.

By the end of practice, the two of them had racked up so many extra penalties _and_ cleaning duty that Kenji estimated they’d probably be there for another hour and a half at least.

Alone.

Together.

Kenji wasn’t certain if this was meant to be punishment or a gift.

Kenji knew to give their coach credit, however; there was no way the two of them could maintain a truce long enough to let the other skip out on any punishment. This wasn’t exactly a new occurrence.

The day was overcast and threatened rain, so despite the fact that it was boring, they jogged a few laps indoors rather than chance any sudden downpours. Kamasaki dared him into suicides, and Kenji managed to trick him into serve/receive practice. It was cathartic to aim strong serves at each other.

Kenji _liked_ practicing with him.

It was just weird, without anyone else there.

Kenji wasn’t sure when he’d become so hyperaware of any time spent alone with Kamasaki, but he’d put a _great_ deal of money on the fact that it would line up with either his captaincy or his fake relationship. Probably more the latter, if he were being totally honest with himself. (Which was rare, but sometimes happened.)

He and Aone spent a ton of time alone together, at school, outside of school, even at their homes. He’d hung out with most of the team one-on-one before. He and Obara spent enough time trying to wade through their new leader roles, that was for sure. Kenji had even begged Moniwa into a few captaincy advice sessions.

“What was it like, being vice?” Kenji found himself asking in a brief lull between either of them trying to cough up their lungs.

“Hah?” Kamasaki asked, squinting suspiciously at him.

“I never really saw you _do_ much,” Kenji reasoned, without ill intent.

He’d genuinely meant it in the fact that Moniwa had been swamped, trying to keep the team from imploding, and Kamasaki had rarely pulled that kind of rank, even with Kenji. Sure, Kamasaki had duties, but Kenji had rarely taken notice of them.

Kamasaki, of course, did not take it that way.

He lobbed a volleyball at Kenji’s head, and Kenji barely ducked in time to avoid it. “The hell is _that_ supposed to mean?!” Kamasaki roared.

Kenji scrambled away, breaking into a run, Kamasaki hot on his heels. There was still no one to pull them apart, but they were both exhausted already. They fell into something like an actual lap soon enough, though Kenji took a _long_ time to get anywhere near Kamasaki again.

He thought about cracking a joke about Aone being his knight in shining armor and saving him from the brutish Kamasaki, but he didn’t want to bring up Aone right now. No offense intended against his boyfriend.

“Obara and I. When we were discussing how to divide up roles, and what we each had to do…” Kenji cocked his head to the side, then jerked it back to flick his hair out of his eyes. He’d taken off his hair clip earlier, and now, he regretted it. “I don’t really know how you and Moniwa-san did it.”

“No _senpai_ , huh?” Kamasaki deadpanned.

“Moniwa-senpai,” Kenji dully corrected for his sake. Senpai was for upperclassmen who were _not_ part of the team. It was why Kenji had been so staunch in playing up the cutesy calls of _senpai_ and reminding them that they might still be schoolmates, but not teammates anymore.

“Dateko prides itself on being a team of its own. The captain and vice captain always have their own way of doing things. Remember Seta-san, from your first year? He was _huge_ on drills an’ stuff. Tons of suicides. He was the one who decided seals were best penalties for us.”

Kenji felt a shiver go up his spine at the memory. Comparably, Moniwa had been the gentlest of butterflies, even after he picked up on how to turn Aone and Futakuchi against each other to make them behave. “I thought he was just a hardass.”

“Well, yeah. And it showed because he was captain,” Kamasaki replied. “Your captaincy is gonna reflect _you_. That counts for vice, too. Don’t be afraid to rely on Obara, and even if ya still hate us comin’ back to practice and stuff, you can always rely on us.”

Kenji was _almost_ touched.

Until Kamasaki added, with a grin, “Even if ya _were_ and _are_ the most ungrateful, spoiled, bratty kouhai I’ve ever met.”

“I am a _delight_!” Kenji snapped. He stumbled to a stop, rounding on Kamasaki, but Kamasaki didn’t take his bait.

He just stopped, too, and stretched his arms over his head as he caught his breath. Kenji was torn between looking at the way his shirt rode up on his stomach, and the gleaming sweaty skin of his arms. His sleeves were rolled up to his shoulders, of course. They always were.

Kenji belatedly realized Kamasaki was _talking_ to him.

If a gun were held to his head, Kenji might have just told them “ _muscles_ ”.

“ _Futakuchi_ ,” Kamasaki barked, and Kenji jumped to attention, ripping his eyes away from Kamasaki’s abs. His shirt was white, and drenched in sweat. If Kenji chose, he could stare hard enough to see the outlines of his body.

Kamasaki had caught him staring, though.

It wasn’t technically the first time this had happened. It was a rare case where Kenji didn’t have some snappy remark to retort with, but that wasn’t totally new, either.

It _was_ the first time this had happened while they were totally alone, however.

“Sheesh, you’re hopeless,” Kamasaki groaned, scrubbing a hand back through his sweat-spiked hair. He needed to touch his roots back up again.

“Yeah, well, what else is new,” Kenji muttered.

Kenji had always stared a little too much to be polite. Kamasaki had always teased him. Kenji had always teased Kamasaki, too. They had _always_ been like this.

Kamasaki had never crossed the line between them, so Kenji never had, either.

“Let’s clean up,” Kamasaki said with one more overhead stretch.

Kenji, if he were single and perhaps brave for once in his life, would accuse him of doing it on purpose. But he wasn’t, so he turned and instead hid his own disappointment with further teasing. “Since you’re such a supportive senpai, you’ll do the floors while I go wash my hair, right?”

“You _hate_ washing your hair at school.”

“I also hate being this sweaty, but here we are.”

“Still a no,” Kamasaki told him. “Captain’s gotta help take care of his own gym, especially if you’re gonna keep expectin’ perks like sneaking in on weekends and practicing by yourself.”

Kenji felt his shoulders go rigid. Damn him, he had him there. “ _Fine_. Jackass.”

“Goddamned brat,” Kamasaki fondly replied.

They cleaned up in relative silence, habit taking over for their aching muscles, and though it was slow going with only two exhausted boys doing it, it wasn’t terrible. Kenji liked spending companionable silence together, too.

 _I’m so far gone_ , he lamented, sighing.

He scrubbed his hair as best he could with his shitty cheap school shampoo—he refused to buy more of his favorite when he so rarely used it here; everyone else would only steal it from him—and he knew Kamasaki would be done far ahead of him. He’d either stay around to tease him about taking so long in the shower, or perhaps he really was tired and had to cut out. Kenji wouldn’t blame him either way.

Kamasaki was dressed, if twice as lazily as ever, when Kenji came out of the showers. He broke into a wide, smug grin. “Done primping, your majesty?”

“You’re so predictable, you know that?” Kenji tossed over his shoulder and went to his locker. His hair was still wet, but that didn’t bother him, despite how Mai scolded him for it whenever she caught him.

When they got to the gym doors, ready to leave together, they found a downpour outside.

Wet hair was a moot point, then.

“Ah,” Kenji said, staring at the hard rain, realizing in the same moment that he didn’t have an umbrella with him. There wasn’t much wind, at least, so maybe he could just sacrifice his bag and use it as a bit of cover. Or he could bite the bullet and just go home soaked.

“Least we didn’t get caught outside runnin’ in it,” Kamasaki muttered, leaning out far enough to glare up at the dark clouds. “Not sure it’ll let up anytime soon, though.”

Kamasaki didn’t have an umbrella, either, Kenji noted.

“Pretty sure Moniwa-senpai has an umbrella still stashed in his locker here,” Kenji offered. Moniwa, despite the fact that he couldn’t come to practice as much as anyone else (despite the fact that he _wasn’t officially part of the team anymore_ ), had turned his old locker into a kind of miniature supply closet. Extra first aid kit, extra practice jerseys, umbrella, athletic tape, air pump, and so on. Kenji had seen enough come out of that locker to never doubt what it could produce.

But even after Kenji fetched it—an adorable bright yellow umbrella with big white polka dots—he still had to deal with the real and pressing reality that they had one umbrella between the two of them.

Kenji’s heart wasn’t going to be able to survive this.

“Well,” Kamasaki said, awkwardly scratching at the back of his head, “looks like we’re sharin’ it, huh.”

Kenji nodded.

“We’re gonna need a truce set up here. No shoving anyone else out into the rain, alright? Guess we’re both big enough, we’re gonna have to kinda… squeeze together.” Was Kamasaki _blushing_? The mere prospect was making Kenji’s own traitorous face heat up.

He had far too much romance on the mind. This kind of shoujo bullshit _should not_ work on the cool and strong captain of the Dateko volleyball team. He blamed Aone, because while it was unfair, at least Aone would never know.

Moniwa had a big umbrella, but they were both giants in their own right, and even with their shoulders pressed tight together in the middle, it became immediately apparent that they were going to get damp, anyway. At least the cold rain could ruin a bit of the magic. He was actually sort of glad.

“Jeez, why is the rain this cold this time of year? It’s supposed to be _hot_ out,” Kamasaki grumbled, pushing closer against Kenji.

“Sad you can’t keep your sleeves rolled up?”

“They’ll get wet anyway,” he replied, and Kenji cracked a smile. “Here,” Kamasaki added, and he suddenly closed his hand over Kenji’s.

Kenji’s brain short circuited.

He was sure Kamasaki could hear the sad _whrrrr-click_ of his entire brain shutting down.

Kamasaki took the umbrella from Kenji’s slack grip, carefully managing not to soak either of them further. “I’m taller,” Kamasaki smugly told him, “so it makes sense for _me_ to hold this.”

“Thanks,” Kenji _squeaked_.

Kamasaki cocked an eyebrow at the incriminating crack in his voice.

There was no salvaging this. Today was _terrible_ —Kenji had been a fool to enjoy time alone with Kamasaki. He had been a fool to have thought that this could end happily. He didn’t deserve this, because he was a coward who wouldn’t give up some of the only familial support he’s ever had.

“Nervous, Futakuchi-kuuuun?” Kamasaki asked with such an evil grin that in other circumstances, Kenji would be quite proud. “Whatcha nervous about?”

“Don’t be cruel,” Kenji hissed at him. _You know damn well what this is about_ , he wanted to add. But even he had _that_ much sense of self-preservation.

“Moniwa would be weepin’ with joy if he could see us now,” Kamasaki said. “Actually gettin’ along and stuff. Not tryin’ to bite each other’s heads off.”

Kenji wouldn’t mind a little biting, probably.

“We’ll have to tell him about our newfound friendship,” Kenji replied with an admirably calm voice.

“I thought ya already said we were _friends_.”

“I said I don’t hate you,” Kenji corrected. But he couldn’t stand to have a repeat of that outburst, so he quickly added, “But we’re probably friends. We _were_ teammates, you know, for a year and a half.”

“God, I wanted to kill ya the first time I heard you open your big mouth,” Kamasaki fondly recalled. The umbrella tilted dangerously as he laughed, but Kenji scrambled closer to Kamasaki, saving himself from the downpour. Kamasaki was right; the rain was _cold_ , and the body beside him was so pleasantly warm.

“I thought you _were_ going to kill me when we first met. A big, hulking upperclassman coming after me? I could’ve died of fright.”

“You were cacklin’ the whole time, you damn liar.”

“I laugh in abject fear, senpai. I’m hurt you didn’t know this about me.”

“I know _plenty_ about you,” Kamasaki replied, bumping shoulders with him on purpose.

“Like what?” Kenji challenged.

Kamasaki stayed silent, for a long moment, and the only sound was the hush of rain all around them. It seemed to insulate them from everything else. Kenji wouldn’t mind staying there longer, like that.

“You got a sweet tooth,” Kamasaki began, seriously. “You’re always eatin’ things that are shit for your health. Some kinda athlete _you_ are.”

“Sour gummy worms are the only thing that keep me going in these dark days of my captaincy,” Kenji replied, just as gravely.

“You’re almost as good a spiker as you are a blocker, and your serves are shapin’ up pretty damn well, too,” Kamasaki continued.

Kenji fell silent, becoming aware in that moment that this wasn’t further teasing. If Kamasaki wanted to be nice to him—wanted to _compliment_ him—then he was going to shut up and let him.

“You’re gonna be a great captain. Dateko is in good hands, and I can’t wait until you round off all these rough edges. You _know_ you’re gonna take this school far, Futakuchi,” Kamasaki told him, with a sidelong glance that Kenji hastily avoided. “You also talk a big game, and then you get all flustered over this kinda trivial shit. S’cute!”

Kenji continued avoiding eye contact. They were still pressed close together, _intimately_ close, and Kamasaki’s body heat was a siren’s call in the chilly rain. His words appealed to Kenji’s ego even more. He kind of wanted to ask him to repeat it again, though it wouldn’t be worth the teasing—or embarrassment. This was already pretty damn embarrassing.

_Did he just call me cute?_

“You’re not allowed to act all shy ‘n shit _now_! I can’t figure out your weakness after I’ve left the team!”

“ _Ha_! You admit you left the team!” Kenji whirled back around, grinning through sheer force of will. He wouldn’t let this become _a thing_. Not anymore than it already had.

“You admit you have weaknesses!” Kamasaki replied with a grin twice as sharp.

“I _don’t_! I’m flawless, and the cherry on top is that _you_ admitted _I_ am going to be a great captain,” Kenji declared. Kamasaki didn’t have much height on him, but damn him for trying to use it. Kenji would get up on the tips of his toes, except it had never once worked against Kamasaki.

“Ya already are, if you stop acting neurotic enough to realize what a great team you have. Y’know, because great teams _cover each other’s weaknesses_. Of which you got plenty.”

“Like _what_?” Kenji demanded. Maybe the return of more insults would even out this daydream-esque situation.

“You give up too easily,” Kamasaki flatly replied. Kenji scoffed, but Kamasaki grabbed his chin, holding him still. Kenji stuck his tongue out at him. “You get it in your head that you _can’t_ do somethin’, and then you just decide not to do it anymore. You sabotage yourself nearly as much as you psych out other teams.”

“I’m working on it,” Kenji replied. His gaze dropped from Kamasaki’s, and somehow, he found himself staring at his mouth. They were pretty close, after all. Sharing an umbrella in the rain. Kamasaki was still holding his face. (Not with tenderness, exactly, because Kamasaki didn’t _do_ tenderness. Kenji was used to it.)

“See,” Kamasaki said, releasing him, and put up his hands like he was giving up on something particularly stubborn. “You’re supposed to _argue_! I miss it when we’d argue. You’re supposed to declare yourself the biggest, baddest dog and snap back at me! Where’s that fighting spirit?!”

“Senpai, we can’t exactly fistfight underneath a single umbrella,” Kenji pointed out. He _was_ still surprised no one had gotten pushed, though. Pleasantly surprised.

Kamasaki was not done, though. Apparently, he had a point to make, and that scared Kenji—though he’d hear him out. If it was going to be a long speech on a man’s spirit and pride and whatever else, he’d tune him out in two seconds, but Kenji knew how to seem like he was paying attention.

But Kamasaki shifted them both around, so they were facing each other, and shoved the umbrella back into Kenji’s hand. He fumbled it, no doubt accidentally dousing Kamasaki with rain, and Kamasaki jostled him further when he clapped both hands on Kenji’s shoulders.

“ _Don’t_ take this the wrong way,” Kamasaki began in a worrying growl.

Kenji blinked up at him with the air of someone about to receive news of a terminal illness. His mother couldn’t patch that one up.

“Moniwa’s gonna _kill_ me,” Kamasaki muttered, mostly to himself, but they were _so close_ that Kenji could’ve counted Kamasaki’s eyelashes if he’d wanted. “Look. _Not_ that Moniwa wasn’t sold on ya or anything, he thinks you’re totally great, and you _are_. But Moniwa initially didn’t want ya as captain this year.”

Good news: Kenji didn’t suddenly burst into tears or anything utterly mortifying like that.

Bad news: He was still pretty damn sure that the sound of his heart breaking was totally audible to Kamasaki.

“Well,” Kenji said, and nothing else.

So what if Moniwa hadn’t wanted him as captain? That was fine. Kenji deserved that. He didn’t blame him—he’d been a _terrible_ brat last year, and most of this year, too, if he were honest. Good players didn’t mean good leaders, after all, so Moniwa would’ve been totally justified in hesitating about putting Troublemaker #1 in charge of the team.  

“ _I_ was the one who put your name up. I’m the one who pushed for you,” Kamasaki told Kenji. His fingers clenched harder in the fabric of Kenji’s uniform. “I knew you could shape up and I knew your stubborn need to be right, and good, and a _winner_ would drag up the team with you. You couldn’t stand losing. I thought that you could take that, shove it onto the team, and that’s why we trusted you with Dateko.”

“ _You_ did?” Kenji parroted back.

It was, admittedly, a lot to wrap his mind around, and he didn’t even know _what_ his emotions were doing right then.

“I knew you could do it,” Kamasaki told him, as serious as Kenji had _ever_ seen him.

Surrounded by nothing but the hush of rain, so close to one another that their breath mingled, with Kamasaki grasping Kenji’s shoulders, and with Kenji’s _fucking traitorous_ heart deciding that maybe it wasn’t totally broken after all, Kenji made the second biggest mistake of his life.

He leaned up and kissed Kamasaki.

For a bright moment, that might have been several moments, Kamasaki _kissed back_.

It was like a reflex; they came together as easily as they had ever fought or practiced or played. Kamasaki didn’t hesitate, grip going slack on his shoulders, then one hand brushing up to rest his thumb against Kenji’s neck, like he was scared of going any further.

The moment broke when Kamasaki reared back with a hissed, “ _Shit_!”

Kenji did not have time to process his sudden anger until Kamasaki headbutted him in the face.

Kenji stumbled back, clutching his nose, which was now gushing blood. The umbrella clattered to the ground between them. Kamasaki had a hand clapped over his own mouth, too, but it looked like he was _horrified_ instead of injured.

“What the—” Kenji angrily began, voice thick and wet, but Kamasaki stumbled back from him.

His heel slid in the wet grass just off the sidewalk. He didn’t fall, but it seemed to break some part of his own shock. “You fucking _bastard_ ,” Kamasaki said.

Kenji may not have had much kissing experience, but he was _pretty sure_ that that wasn’t how it was supposed to go.

Kamasaki’s eyes dropped to Kenji’s bloody hand, concern warring with whatever anger he’d decided on this time, but it all snapped into cold clarity when he said, “You’re dating Aone. You—you _asshole_ , you don’t get to kiss me when you’re dating him.”

Anger apparently won out over concern. Kenji didn’t blame him right then. “Wait,” Kenji croaked, but his voice sounded feeble to his own ears. He had no clue if Kamasaki had actually heard him or not.

“I can’t believe you finally—you _jackass_! You’re mean, yeah, but that’s just—that’s fucking _cruel_ , Futakuchi! I ain’t a cheater, and you weren’t supposed to be that kinda asshole, either!”

“Wait, senpai—”

“Fuck you, Futakuchi!” Kamasaki snarled and turned on his heel. He left the umbrella on the sidewalk and stormed away into the rain.

Kenji didn’t follow him.

His nose ached, and his eyes stung, but he had no idea if he was actually crying, since he was very quickly drenched. His bag and the umbrella remained on the ground in front of him, but he had no strength to reach for either. He couldn’t believe he’d just done that.

 _Fuck_.

Yep, heart broken, after all.


End file.
